
THE REAL 
FAIRY FOLK 

• LOUISE JAMISON • 




Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



p* THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 




1\ 




" *I FEEL THE WIND, CRIED RUTH, WITH BRIGHT EYES. 
'DEAR VOICE, ARE YOU THE WIND ?' ' 



THE 



Real Fairy Folk 

BY 

LOUISE JAMISON 
ILLUSTRATED 

BY 

JAMES M. GLEESON 




HEW YORK GARDEN CITY, A\ Y. 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

MCMXII 






ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 



COPYRIGHT, igi 2, BY DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 




THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. V. 



g CI. A 3 00 4,8 5 



To my Mother and Father this 
little book is lovingly dedicated 




CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. In the Old Willow Tree 3 

II. Two Funny Gentlemen and What They 

Said 13 

III. Ruth and the Wonderful Spinners ... 33 

IV. Mrs. Mosquito and Her Kin 51 

V. Ruth Hears About Some Water Babies . 64 

VI. Ruth Goes to a Concert 82 

VII. Ruth Meets All Sorts and Conditions . . 100 

VIII. Mrs. Tumble Bug and Others .... 118 

IX. Little Mischief Makers 134 

X. Some Queer Little People 148 

XL Wise Folks and Fiery Ones 159 

XII. The Honey Makers 180 

XIII. The Most Beautiful of All 197 

XIV. Real Fairies 212 




ILLUSTRATIONS 

"'I feel the wind,' cried Ruth, with bright eyes. 

'Dear voice, are you the Wind ? ' ' Frontispiece 

PAGE 

"'Sometimes it seems as if it must be Fairyland 

all around, only I'm deaf '" 8 

"Ruth, holding Belinda tightly, drew close to 

the edge of the brook" 14 

"'How's that?' and with a splash a big green 
and brown frog landed on the stone at her 
feet" - 15 

" ' I am a frog, of course, but my family name is 

Rana'" - 16 

"That nice fat toad in the garden" 18 

'"I didn't move, but my tongue did" 19 

"'I was soon swimming about with a lot of 
other tads, slapping tails, and having all 
kinds of fun"' ------ 23 

"A loud splash and Mr. Rana's long legs dis- 
appeared in the brook" 24 
ix 



x ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

" ' I'm right over here in the shade " - -25 

"'The mother spins the cocoon of silk from her 

own body ' " 38 

" ' Why, it's Daddy Long Legs '" - - - 46 
"'I made one of these pits and in the funnel 

end I lay in wait for ants ' " - - - 76 

The wise grasshopper ----- 88 

44 'My friends, there are ants and ants'" - - 160 

"'Then there are ants who keep slaves' " - - 162 
"'Then there are ants who cut pieces from 

green leaves and carry them as parasols '" - 163 

The house of the mound-builder ant - - - 165 

"VespaMaculata" ------ 170 

The Queen Bee and her bodyguard of drones - 187 
'"Smart children, aren't they?' asked some 

moths" - - - - - - - 203 

'"I am the moon moth, the Luna"' - 213 




THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 



\ 



CHAPTER I 

IN THE OLD WILLOW TREE 

He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small. 

— Coleridge. 

RUTH climbed to her favourite perch 
in the old willow tree, and settled 
- Belinda in a crotch beside her. 
"Now," she said, drawing a long breath, 
"we will be cool and comfy." 

Certainly if there was a cool spot to be 
found on this hot August morning it was in 
the shade of this big willow. 

"Her very own tree," as Ruth always called 
it, for, since she could climb at all, she had 
loved to sit among its drooping branches and 

3 



4 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

hear the leaves whispering together the 
wonderful things, which she knew they were 
telling each other, even though she could 
not understand them. 

Then, too, she could look down into the 
brook, and watch the doings of the queer 
little people who made their home there. 

These, like all the tiny folk of the outdoor 
world, were a source of never-failing interest 
and wonder. 

In their company, Ruth was never lonely, 
even though she had neither brother nor 
sister, nor indeed any little boy or girl to 
play with. 

Still it would be so much nicer if she could 
only talk to the bugs and things. There were 
such lots of questions she wanted to ask them. 

How she did wish that the funny old tumble 
bugs would stop rolling their ball, and tell 
her all about it. They never did, though. 
They just kept at that ball as though it was 
the most important thing in the world. 

Then she wanted to know what the bees 



IN THE OLD WILLOW TREE 5 

whispered to the flowers as they buzzed 
above them, and whether the butterflies 
spoke to each other as they flew by in the 
sunshine. 

There were the ants, too, always so busy, 
and in such a hurry. How fast they could 
run when any one upset their nest; and how 
funny they looked carrying those queer white 
bundles. 

Mother had called these bundles the ants' 
babies, but Ruth thought them very odd 
babies, and she wondered if they had to 
be fed and bathed and put to sleep like human 
babies. 

She wanted to know all about them, and 
about the spiders too, and their wonderful 
webs. 

"Just think what a chance Miss Muffet 
had," she said to Belinda, when both were 
settled to her satisfaction in the willow-tree 
perch. "Only a very friendly spider would 
come up and sit down by you, and who knows 
the interesting things it could tell. The 



6 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

idea of being afraid of a spider anyhow! 
You might as well be afraid of that funny 
old toad in the garden, and I don't believe 
he could hurt you if he tried. I guess he 
doesn't do anything but sleep." 

Ruth had been trying to talk to the toad 
that very morning. He had looked so solemn 
and so wise as he sat under the shade of a 
big stone in the damp corner of the garden, 
"but," as she said, "he wasn't any good at 
all," for he only looked at her, then drew a 
film over his eyes, and went on swallowing 
very hard. 

"He can talk, though, I know," she said 
to Belinda. "They can all talk in their 
way. It sounds like noise to us, because 
we can't understand. Do hear them, Belinda? 
What are they saying?" 

But of course Belinda could not answer. 
She never said more than "mama," in a 
very squeaky voice, and you had to squeeze 
her ever so hard to make her do that. 

Ruth sighed softly, then, leaning forward 



IN THE OLD WILLOW TREE 7 

vith her elbow propped on her knee, and her 
hin resting in the palm of her hand, she 
listened to the flood, of sound about her; the 
hum and buzz that came from garden and 
orchard, from field and meadow; thousands 
of tiny voices, rising and falling and rising 
again, as they told their fascinating life 
stories, from every leaf and twig and grass 
blade. 

"They are talking just as fast as they can," 
Ruth said again, "but I don't know what 
they are saying. Oh! if I only did. Why 
don't people learn their language instead of 
German and French and lots of other old 
things that aren't any good? It would be 
ever so much nicer, and they could find out 
so many wonderful things, couldn't they, 
Belinda?" 

But, as usual, Belinda only stared at Ruth, 
and said nothing. 

"Oh, dear," said Ruth, "if you were only 
alive, and could tell me things, you'd be ever 
so much more interesting, but then maybe," 




SOMETIMES IT SEEMS AS IF IT MUST BE FAIRYLAND ALL AROUND, 
ONLY I'M DEAF' " 



IN THE OLD WILLOW TREE 9 

she added, thoughtfully, "I wouldn't under- 
stand you any better than I do them. Maybe 
doll language is different too. It is all so 
puzzling. Sometimes it seems as if it must 
be Fairyland all around, only I'm deaf. 
I wonder if there's a word that lets you in 
so you can know about things, like 'Open 
Sesame' in 'The Forty Thieves.' Oh, Belinda, 
do you think there is?" And Ruth clasped 
her hands together at the very thought. 
"But we can't find it out," she added, 
more soberly, "and so it wouldn't be any 



J* 

use. 



"Watch and listen! Watch and listen!" 
said a voice so close to her ear that Ruth 
jumped, and nearly fell to the ground. 

She looked about her expectantly, but 
no one was in sight, either in the tree or 
under it 

"It is very queer," she said. "You can't 
talk, Belinda, and I don't see a single person 
anywhere." 

"It is not so queer as you think," the voice 



10 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

replied, as close to her ear as before. "You 
cannot see me, but you can feel me." 

A passing breeze had touched her cheek 
and was softly ruffling her hair. 

"I feel the wind," cried Ruth, with bright 
eyes. "Dear voice, are you the Wind? 
Why have you never talked to me before? 
If you only knew how I have wanted some 
one to talk to me, and, tell me things ! People 
don't seem to like to answer questions. They 
haven't time or something. But you must 
know such a lot. The wind goes everywhere." 

"Yes, I am a great traveller, but, child, the 
marvellous things are not all far off. There 
is a wonderland right here at home, if one 
has the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the 
heart to feel and understand." 

Ruth clapped her hands, and her eyes 
danced. 

"I knew it! I knew it!" she cried eagerly. 
"I told Belinda it was Fairyland all around 
us; but, dear Wind," she added, while a little 
cloud filled her eyes, "I do see and hear 



IN THE OLD WILLOW TREE 11 

lots of things, but I carCt understand, and I 
do want to know all the whys and becauses. 
Won't you please, please tell me?" 

"I may not do that, child," was the an- 
swer "for each thing speaks in its own lan- 
guage, and will tell its own story to those 
who seek truly and earnestly. You are a 
thoughtful child, and for that reason it will 
be given to you to know those things which 
you most desire to learn. Only remember, 
'Watch and be patient,' and never forget the 
password 'Brotherhood,' for even the lowest 
creature has some rights to be respected." 

The breeze passed on, softly singing through 
the willow branches, but Ruth sat without 
moving, her eyes wide with eager wonder. 

"I didn't dream it," she said at last in an 
awed little whisper. "It was as real as 
anything could be that you couldn't see. I 
suppose 'brotherhood' means not to be un- 
kind or cruel to things. Oh, Belinda, just 
think of it: hearing what they say, the bees 
and the butterflies and the dear little crickets 



12 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

and funny old grasshoppers," and she snatched 
Belinda to her and hugged her tight. "It 
will be harder than ever to go into the house 
now, won't it?" she finished soberly. Then 
she sat for a few minutes thinking, very quiet, 
but very happy. 

"Kerchug — kerchug — kerchug, " called a 
voice from the brook, and Ruth started so 
suddenly she nearly dropped Belinda, and 
caught a branch just in time to keep herself 
from falling. 

"Gracious," she said, "how that scared me. 
I do believe it was that big green and brown 
frog. See him down there, Belinda? He 
is just showing his head and his funny eyes 
out of the water. Let's get down close to 
him, and maybe he'll come out all the way." 





CHAPTER II 

TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN AND WHAT THEY 

SAID 

Nothing useless is or low. 

— Tennyson. 

TO BE sure I'll come out," answered 
a croaky voice, as Ruth, holding 
Belinda tightly, drew close to the 
edge of the brook. "How's that?" and with 
a splash a big green and brown frog landed 
on the stone at her feet. 

"Now," he added, swelling out his white 
vest with an air of importance, "I am a frog, 
of course, but my family name is Rana. 
Please don't forget it." 

"Family name?" said Ruth, sitting down 

13 




RUTH, HOLDING BELINDA TIGHTLY, DREW CLOSE TO THE EDGE OF 
THE BROOK" 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 15 

on the edge of the stone. "I didn't know 
frogs had family names." 

"There's a great deal you don't know," 
said Mr. Rana, in his decided way. 

"Maybe there is," agreed Ruth, "but it 




" ' how's that?' and with a splash a big green 
and brown frog landed on the stone at her 

FEET " 

isn't very polite to tell me so." Then, with 
a sudden thought, she added quickly, "Why, 
you are really talking." 

"Of course, I'm talking. Do you suppose 
it's the first time?" 




AM A FROG, OF COURSE, BUT MY FAMILY NAME 13 RANA 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 17 

"He's dreadfully snappy," Ruth whispered 
to Belinda. 

"It isn't my fault that people can't under- 
stand," finished Mr. Rana, swallowing very 
fast. 

"I wanted to understand," declared Ruth 
meekly. "I was sure you could tell me such 
a lot of interesting things, and that nice fat 
toad in the garden too. He is so " 

"You'd better talk to the fat toad, then," 
said Mr. Rana, looking very cross. 

"Oh, dear," sighed Ruth, "I didn't mean 
I'd rather talk to him. I do want you to 
tell me things. All about yourself, please." 

"Now you are showing your good sense," 
said Mr. Rana, as Ruth settled herself with 
a ready-to-listen air. "Nothing can be more 
interesting than my story; but excuse me one 
second. I see Mrs. Mosquito. This morn- 
ing I ate her husband, and now " 

His sentence was not finished, but Mrs. 
Mosquito was; and Mr. Rana folded his 
hands across his fat stomach and looked at 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 19 

Ruth, while a big smile played about his 
broad mouth. 

"She's gone," said Ruth, in a slightly awed 
tone, "and I know you've swallowed her, 
but I wish you would tell me how you did it. 
I didn't see you move." 




"*i didn't move, but my tongue DID"' 

"I didn't move, but my tongue did, and 
it went so quick you couldn't see it. When 
you eat, you bring things to your tongue, 
but when I eat, I send my tongue to my 
dinner. It's a simpler way, I think. My 
tongue is rather wonderful too. It is fas- 



20 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

tened to my mouth in front, and rolled back; 
besides, it has a sort of glue on the end that 
catches whatever there is to catch. The 
number of pests I eat in a day would astonish 
you. Slugs, grubs, snails, mosquistoes, and 
— well, what's the matter? You don't like 
such things, I suppose. Tastes differ, you see. 
Now, to tell my story. What do you think 
I looked like when I was first hatched?" 

"A tadpole, of course," answered Ruth. 
"I've seen lots of tadpoles. They are funny, 
wiggly things." 

"They are lively fellows," agreed Mr. 
Rana, swallowing several times, while Ruth 
silently watched the sides of his neck puff out. 

"Please tell me why you swallow so much," 
she asked at last. "You are not eating, are 
you?" 

Mr. Rana smiled, and this time the smile 
went all around his mouth. 

"I swallow to breathe," he answered. "I 
can't swallow air while my mouth is open, 
and so I stop talking and shut it. Every 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 21 

time I swallow, the air sac on the side of my 
neck fills out. That's why my voice has such 
a lovely croak. My poor wife hasn't any air 
sac, so her voice is never croaky." 

"But in the water " began Ruth. 

"In the water," answered Mr. Rana, "I 
take in air through my skin. It is very 
porous. My skin I mean. It is really a 
pleasure to tell you things. Now to get 
back to the beginning, being a tadpole, or, 
I should say, an egg. Looking at me now, 
could you imagine that I was once a tiny egg? 
It's a fact, though. My mother laid her eggs 
near some water rushes, and, as I said, these 
eggs were but tiny specks, black specks 
enclosed in a gluey case, which the w T ater 
made swell, until it looked like a mass of 
jelly. I came from one of those specks, and 
I tell you I was a lively fellow when I was 
first hatched. Some people say tadpoles 
are all head and tail, but there were other 
parts to me — places for legs, and I know I 
had two eyes and a mouth. Of course I 



22 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

made the most of life. A whole pond to 
circle in seemed a mighty big world to me, and 
I was soon swimming about with a lot of 
other tads, slapping tails, and having all 
kinds of fun. Indeed, we were always lively, 
especially when we were trying to get away 
from those who wanted us for dinner. There 
were lots of them too." 

"Ugh!" said Ruth, screwing up her face. 

This displeased Mr. Rana. 

"A tadpole is very delicate eating," he 
said. "You have never tasted one, so you 
cannot judge; but let that pass. J was not 
eaten, as you can see for yourself." 

"I am glad you were not," said Ruth as Mr. 
Rana stopped to swallow some air, "because 
then I shouldn't have known you." 

"Well, that's a fact. Now let me see what 
comes next. Oh, yes — my legs. Legs, you 
must know, are very important affairs to a 
tadpole, because when he gets them he isn't 
a tadpole any more; so you may be sure 
I was happy when I saw mine beginning to 




I WAS SOON SWIMMING ABOUT WITH A LOT OF OTHER TADS, SLAPPING 
TAILS, AND HAVING ALL KINDS OF FUN ' " 



24 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

grow. At the same time, my tail became 
shorter and shorter, until at last I had none 
at all. I was really and truly a frog. After 
this I was not obliged to stay in the water all 




"A LOUD SPLASH AND MR. RANA's LONG LEGS DIS- 
APPEARED IN THE BROOK" 

the time. I had lungs and could breathe air." 
"But you do go in sometimes," said Ruth. 

"I've seen you." 

"Of course I do," agreed Mr. Rana. "I 

must keep my skin wet, and that reminds me 

it's pretty dry now, so I will have to leave 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 

you. Good-by for the pres- 
ent." And before Ruth could 
say a word there was a loud 
splash and Mr. Rana's long 
legs disappeared in the brook. 

"Oh, dear, he's gone! 
sighed Ruth. 

"Yes, and good rid- 
dance," croaked a voice that 
was not Mr. Rana's. 

Ruth looked around 
quickly. 

" It's nice having things 
talk to you," she said, 
"but it keeps you jump- 
mg. 

"Use your eyes, and 
you wouldn't 
have to jump," ^ 
went on the same 
voice. "I'm 
right over here 

, -, i ! '"i'm right over here in the 

in the shade. shade " 



25 




26 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

My blood's cold, and I can't stand the hot 



sun." 



It was her friend the garden toad. Ruth 
could see him plainly now. He looked more 
puffy than ever, as he sat under the bushes, 
swelling his leathery throat with importance. 
"If my cousin can talk to you I guess I can 
too," he added. "Fin Mr. Bufo, and I'm 
quite as interesting as he is." 

Ruth was only too willing to agree to this, 
though, as she whispered to Belinda, she 
thought frogs and toads had very good 
opinions of themselves. 

"I have a wife," croaked Mr. Bufo when 
Ruth had sat herself on the ground close to 
him, "a worrying wife. Do you know it's 
a bad thing to have a worrying wife?" 

Ruth didn't know, but she nodded her head 
in agreement. 

"A bad thing," repeated Mr. Bufo. "In 
the Spring, after Mrs. Bufo had laid her eggs, 
she gave me no peace. Of course, like all 
toads, she laid them in the water, but, in- 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 27 

stead of being reasonable about it, she was 
always asking me how she was to know 
them from the eggs Mrs. Rana and Mrs. 
Urodillo had laid. Theirs were in the water 
too." 

"Please, who is Mrs. Urodillo?" asked 
Ruth. "I know Mrs. Rana is a frog." 

"Mrs. Urodillo is a water salamander," 
answered Mr. Bufo, not over pleased at 
being interrupted. "Now where was I? Oh, 
yes. Mrs. Bufo was afraid she wouldn't 
know her own eggs. Well, I tried to argue 
with her. 

"'Didn't you lay yours in double strings?' 
I asked, 'and didn't you with motherly care 
enclose them in thin but strong tubes?' Of 
course she couldn't deny it. 'But I won't 
know my own tadpoles,' she kept insisting." 

"No wonder she was worried," said Ruth. 
"Any one would want to know their own 
babies." 

"Mothers in our family never do," declared 
Mr. Bufo. "They lay their eggs, and that's 



28 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

the end of it. Mrs. Bufo knew that as well 
as I did. She only wanted something to 
worry about. All tadpoles are pretty much 
alike to begin with, but they don't end 
alike. Toad egg tads always grow into 
toads; frog egg tads become frogs, and sala- 
mander egg tads will be salamanders and 
nothing else.' 7 

All -the while lie talked Mr. Bufo had 
stopped every little while to swallow, not 
only air, but whatever in the way of insects 
came within his reach. So of course Ruth 
saw his tongue. 

"Your tongue is just like Mr. Rana's," 
she said, after watching it for a few seconds. 

"Our tongues may be alike," agreed Mr. 
Bufo, "but there's a vast difference in our 
legs. His are too long for any use, and his 
skin is so horribly smooth it gives me the 
shivers just to look at it. Of course I know 
I am not handsome, and that reminds me of 
some lines that have been written about me. 
Want to hear them?" 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 29 

Then without waiting for an answer he 
swallowed some air and began: 

" I'm a clumsy, awkward toad, 
And I hop along the road; 
Tis the only way we toads can well meander; 
While in yonder marshy bog 
Leaps my relative the frog, 
Very near my aunt, the water Salamander. 

''And if you should ever stray 
Near a slimy pool some day, 
And along its grassy margin chance to loiter. 
Do not pass it idly by, 
For it is the spot where I 
Was born a lively tadpole in the water. 

'I'm a homely, harmless thing; 
I catch insects on the wing, 
And in this I serve you all ; it is my duty. 
And now tell me which is best, 
To be useless and well dressed, 
Or useful, even though I am no beauty?" 

Mr. Bufo had scarcely finished, when his 
mate hopped out from some nearby bushes. 

"I'd be ashamed," she said, in a very puffy 
voice, "to sit there repeating that lovely 
poetry, with such shabby clothes as yours 
are. How many more times must I tell 
you to change them?" 



30 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"It doesn't matter about his clothes," 
said Ruth. "I think it is so lovely to hear 
him talk." 

"You haven't heard him as often as I 
have," puffed Mrs. Bufo, hopping almost 
into Ruth's lap. "Besides, his clothes are 
a disgrace. They are not only faded and 
dull, but they are actually beginning to 
split up the back." 

"Are they?" croaked Mr. Bufo meekly. 

Then he drew a film over his eyes and 
pretended to be asleep. 

"Now look here," said Mrs. Bufo, "you 
can't deceive me. That is only your third 
eyelid. You are not asleep. Now do get 
off those old clothes." 

"Well, if I must, I must," croaked Mr. 
Bufo, hopping away. 

"There, I've made him do it at last," puffed 
Mrs. Bufo, swallowing a passing fly. "It's 
a hard job, and I don't blame him for getting 
out of it as long as possible. He has to 
twist and turn, and use first one leg and then 



TWO FUNNY GENTLEMEN 31 

another, until he is quite free from his old 
suit, and then, tired as he is, he must eat it." 

"Eat it?" repeated Ruth, screwing up her 
face. 

"Yes, eat it, and not a tooth to chew with 
either. I can't see why we haven't teeth 
like those horrid frogs, though, to tell the 
truth, theirs are no good for chewing. They 
only have them in their upper jaws, and they 
point backward, too, like fish teeth. I can't 
see that they help much in chewing, but they 
do help to hold what the frog wishes to 
swallow, and, after all, we toads and frogs 
are swallowers rather than chewers." 

As she spoke, several flies went to prove 
her words. 

"Yes," she added with a big puff, which 
Ruth took for a sigh, "we have our troubles 
and worries from early Spring, when we leave 
our holes, where we sleep all Winter, to the 
time when frost drives us into our holes 
again, and no one seems to think about the 
work we do. The garden couldn't have a 



32 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

better friend, for the bugs and harmful 
insects we eat can't be counted. Well, 
there's no use talking this way. I must go 
to Mr. Bufo. He'll need some cheering up, 
I'm sure. One good thing, he won't have 
to make his new suit. He'll find it all ready 
under his old one." 

"Well, she does think of him, anyhow," 
thought Ruth as Mrs. Bufo hopped away. 
"I hope she will talk to me again some day." 





CHAPTER III 



RUTH AND THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 



She throws a web upon the air and soon 

'Tis caught and lifted by the willing breezes, 

Then, freed from trouble in her light balloon, 
Our spinner travels wheresoe're she pleases. 

— Edith M. Thomas. 

RUTH was in the garden counting 
colours among the hollyhocks when 
a little breeze hurried by. 
"Come," it said, kissing her cheek, "and 
hurry; things are going to happen." 

"It is my dear Wind," cried Ruth, her 
eyes growing big with expectation, and, 
stopping just long enough to snatch up 
Belinda, who of course would wish to go, too, 
she followed where the little breeze led. 



34 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

This was to a lovely spot on the edge of 
the wood, and one of the first things she saw 
was a big round spider's web on the branches 
of a tall bush. 

"Oh," she said, going up closer "who 
would ever think a spider could make any- 
thing like that?" 

"Indeed," said a voice which made her 
give a little jump, "who else but a spider 
could spin a web, I'd like to know? You 
haven't any brains, I'm thinking." 

"Oh, please excuse me," said Ruth. "I 
didn't know you were there." 

"That's because you don't use your eyes 
properly," was the answer of the large, 
handsome black and gold spider hanging 
head down from the centre of the big 
web. 

Her eight long, slender legs were out- 
stretched and rested by their tips on the 
bases of the taut radii, and her eight eyes 
were staring at Ruth. 

"I saw you as soon as you came," she said. 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 35 

"I suppose you will stay to the meeting. 
I'm to be chair-spider." 

"Chair-spider?" repeated Ruth, slightly 
confused by those eight bright eyes. "And 
please, what meeting?" 

"Why, our meeting, of course. Mrs. Cob- 
web Weaver says men always have a chair- 
man at their meetings, so why shouldn't 
spiders have a chair-spider, I'd like to know?" 

"I suppose they should," agreed Ruth. 

"Of course we should. Considering you 
are a human creature, with only tw^o eyes, 
two legs, and no spinnerets, you really show 
a great deal of sense. Now sit down on the 
crotch of that little tree, then you will be 
near me and can hear all I say. What's 
that thing you are carrying? " 

"Why, it's Belinda, my doll," explained 
Ruth. "I tell her everything. I think she 
will like your — your — meeting." 

"Well, I don't care whether she does or 
not," said Madame Spider. "Now our friends 
are arriving, and as you can see, with even two 



36 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

eyes, they are all shapes and sizes. Long 
legged, short legged, plump, thin, grave and 
gay. All colours too — quite enough to satisfy 
any taste, I should say." 

Ruth looked about her in wide-eyed as- 
tonishment. 

"I never knew there were so many kinds 
of spiders," she said at last, "or that they 
had such lovely colours. I thought spiders 
were mostly grayish or brownish." 

"That is because you haven't used your 
eyes, as I said before; but you are only like 
others of your kind. Such ignorance ! Because 
some spiders are dull and colourless, most 
people imagine that all are so. I suppose 
they think, if they stop to think at all, 
that all kinds of webs are spun by the same 
kind of spider, and that all spiders spin 
webs." 

"Don't they?" asked Ruth, with some 
hesitation, for Mrs. Spider's indignation made 
her look quite fierce. 

"They do not" was the decided answer. 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 37 

"All spiders are spinners, but not all are 
web makers." 

Ruth looked puzzled. 

"You see," explained Mrs. Spider, "it 
all depends upon the way they catch their 
prey. Spider habits are as different as their 
looks. Some like the sun, others prefer the 
shade. Some live in the forest, and others 
with the house people. Many make their 
home in the bark of trees, and under stones." 

"I've seen that kind," interrupted Ruth, 
eagerly, "and when you lift up the stone 
they run awfully fast. Sometimes they have 
a funny little gray bundle, just as the ants 
carry their babies. Maybe it's their babies 
too. Is it?" 

"Well, they will be babies if nothing 
happens. Those gray bundles are cocoons 
full of eggs. The mother spins the cocoon of 
silk from her own body." 

"Oh, now, I understand. They are spin- 
ners, but they don't have any web. Isn't 
that it?" 



38 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

" Exactly. They do not need a web. They 
spring on their prey when the prey isn't 
looking. We call them hunters, also runners." 
"Well, they can run," said Ruth. 

"The flower spiders are 
not web spinners either," 
went on Madame Spider, 
who seemed to like nothing 
better than to talk. " They 
live among flowers, and eat 
the visiting insects. You 
can see some of them over 
there. Talk about colours ! 
They are gay enough, just 
like flowers themselves. 
Perhaps you can guess 
why." 

Ruth thought a few 
minutes. 

"Well," she said, "if they were the same 
colour as the flower they couldn't be seen so 
easily. I saw something walk out of an ear 
of corn once, and it looked like a kernel of 




" * THE MOTHER SPINS THE 
COCOON OF SILK FROM HER 
OWN BODY'" 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 39 

corn on eight legs. It was awful funny. 
Was that a spider?" 

"Very likely. We are wonderful enough 
for anything. I suppose you have never 
heard of the trapdoor spider and his silk- 
lined burrow, with its little hinged door, 
nor of the spider who lives under the water, 
in a tiny silken house, which she spins herself, 
and fills with air carried down, bubble by 
bubble, from the surface. Don't look as 
though you didn't believe me. It isn't 
polite. I am telling you the truth. Very 
likely you'll doubt me when I say that we 
sail in balloons, of our own making, and cross 
streams of water on bridges, which we can 
fashion as we need them — that is, we 
orb weavers do, for, after all, we stand at 
the head of the spider clan. Did you know 
I was an orb weaver?" 

"I — I — haven't thought about it," said 
Ruth, slowly, for the question had come 
very suddenly, "but I'd like you to go on 
telling me things. Do you always hang with 



40 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

your head down? I should think it would 
make you dizzy." 

"Dizzy? Whoever heard of such a thing? 
Of course I keep my head down, and my toes 
on my telegraph lines. Then I can feel the 
least tremble in any one of them, and I'm 
pretty quick to run where I know my dinner 
is waiting. Sometimes I don't hurry quite 
so fast. That is when the line trembles in 
a way which lets me know that something 
big has been caught. Indeed, there are times 
when I bite the threads around what might 
have been my dinner, and let it go; for it is 
wiser to lose a meal than run the chance of 
being a meal." And Mrs. Orb Weaver 
winked, not with one eye only, but with all 
eight. "Now it is time to talk to the com- 
pany," she added, "as I am chair-spider." 

She said the last words in a loud voice, 
intended for all to hear; then she looked 
around to see if any one objected. 

"They had better not," she said to Ruth, 
and in a louder voice, added: "My friends, 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 41 

we are not appreciated. Men talk about 
the wonderful bees, the wonderful wasps, 
the wonderful ants, but few of them say 
anything about the wonderful spiders. Now 
we are wonderful, too, and we are honest, 
and we are industrious. We eat flies and lots 
of other pests, and we do not hurt orchards, 
or steal into pantries, or chew up clothes. 
Indeed, we do man no harm at all. But 
is he grateful? Tell me that. I'll tell you 
he isn't. Ask Mrs. Cobweb Weaver if there 
isn't always some broom sweeping down the 
nice web she makes. I wonder she doesn't 
hate a broom. No, my friends, man is not 
grateful. Even those who call themselves 
our friends are ready to pop us into bottles, 
or boxes, whenever they get a chance. They 
give us what they call a painless death in 
the cause of science. Now we would rather 
live in our own cause. At least I would." 

Mrs. Orb Weaver had become so excited 
that her whole web was shaking violently. 

Ruth was excited, too. 



42 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"It's rather horrid to do that way," she 
said, "but maybe people don't know about 
you. I didn't until to-day. The wonderful 
things I mean, and I want to know lots more. 
How your web is made and — and — every- 
thing. Please tell me." 

"Why, certainly," answered Mrs. Orb 
Weaver readily. "To begin with, my web 
is made of silk." 

"Who didn't know that?" snapped a run- 
ning spider. 

"I didn't," answered Ruth. 

"You! And who are you, pray?" 

"Be quiet," commanded Mrs. Orb Weaver. 
"She is my guest, and anything she wishes 
to know I shall be happy to tell her. Now, 
to get on, our webs are made of silk, and the 
silk comes from our own bodies, through 
little tubes called spinnerets. It is soft at 
first, but gets harder when it reaches the 
air, just like caterpillar silk. We guide each 
thread with our hind feet, making heavier 
strands by twisting a number of fine ones to- 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 43 

gether. Of course, we spin the foundation 
lines first. They are the ones which fix the 
web to the bush. Then the ray lines, those 
like the spokes in a wheel. They are all 
heavy strands, and only after they are 
finished do we spin the real snare, the lines 
which run around. They are very fine, and 
are covered with a sort of glue, for they have 
to catch and hold the flies and other insects 
that come on the web. We orb weavers 
are the only ones who have this glue. 
No other spiders use it. They trust to 
the meshes of the web to entangle their 
prey." 

"But why don't the sticky parts catch 
you too?" asked Ruth, who had been listen- 
ing with eager attention. "I've seen you 
run all over your web and " 

"We never get caught. Of course not," 
finished Mrs. Orb Weaver. "And why? 
That's a question. The wise men don't 
know, and if we. do, we are not telling. Now 
I am getting hungry, so I think I will tell a 



44 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

little story, then we will adjourn. I am sorry 
there isn't time for Mrs. Funnel Weaver to 
speak." 

"But there is," declared a large brown 
spider, whose body looked as though it were 
set on a framework of legs. I mean to speak 
too — if only to point out all those webs 
in the grass." 

"Oh, I've often seen webs like that," 
said Ruth. "They are lovely with dew on 
them. But why do you call yourself a funnel 
weaver?' 

"I don't!" she snapped. "The men, who 
think they know everything, gave me that 
name, because at one side of my web is a 
funnel-shaped tube. It is our way to escape 
our enemies. We run through it into the 
grass when something too big for us to 
manage gets into our web." 

"I generally make my web in houses," 
said a small, slender-legged, light-coloured 
spider. 

She spoke in a hurry, as though she was 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 45 

afraid some one might stop her before she 
finished. "I have cousins who like fields 
and fences and outbuildings, but our webs 
are all the same pattern. Not so regular 
as yours, Mrs. Orb Weaver, but very fine 
and delicate." 

"Oh, everybody knows you, Mrs. Cobweb 
Weaver," said a voice from a near-by twig. 
Now if you are speaking of legs " 

"We are not," answered Mrs. Orb Weaver, 
"and I should like to know how you came 
here." 

"On my legs of course. Don't you think 
they are long enough? And though I can 
neither spin nor weave, I am your relation, 
and I have as much right to be here as you 
have. I " 

"Why, it's Daddy Long Legs," interrupted 
Ruth, with a friendly smile of recognition. 
"I like daddies." 

"Well, I am not saying anything about my 
legs," remarked a fat little spider, as Daddy 
tried to bow to Ruth, " though I have eight 



46 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

of them. I usually travel in a balloon, which 
I make myself. Oh, I tell you, it is fine to go 

•' Sailing mid the golden air 
In skiffs of yielding gossamer." 

"Poetry," said a handsome spider, wheeling 
back and forth on a silken bridge swung be- 
tween two bushes. "I could have learned 




WHY, ITS DADDY LONG LEGS 



some too, but I didn't know it was allowed. 
Of course I can build bridges. Who is asking 
that idiotic question? You?" And eight 
glaring eyes were fixed upon Ruth. "Maybe 
you don't know that spiders were the first 
bridge builders and when men suspend their 
great bridges to-day they follow our ideas 
and ways, without giving us the least credit; 
but that's the way with men." 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 47 

"Well, we can't expect to regulate men," 
answered Mrs. Orb Weaver, "and, besides, 
it's time to tell my story, and then you 
will know why we get our name, and why we 
are such wonderful spinners. Now listen, all 
of you: 

"Once upon a time " 

Ruth chuckled contentedly. All nice stories 
began, "Once upon a time." "Please go on," 
she whispered eagerly. 

"Then don't interrupt me," said Mrs. 
Orb Weaver, and she began again: 

"Once upon a time, ever so long ago, there 
lived in a beautiful land called Greece a 
maiden named Arachne. Arachne was not 
only fair to look upon, but she could also 
spin and weave in a fashion so wondrously 
fine that all who saw her work said that the 
great Athena herself must have been her 
teacher. Now this surely was praise enough, 
but Arachne was vain. 'Nay,' she said, 'no 
one has taught me, and gladly will I weave 
with the great goddess herself, and thus prove 



48 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

the skill to be all my own.' Her words only 
shocked all who heard them, but Arachne 
cared not, and again repeated her wish 
to try her skill with Athena. 

"So it happened that as she sat spinning 
one day an old woman, leaning on a staff, 
stopped by her loom. 

"'Child,' she said in a gentle voice, 'a 
great gift is yours.' 

"Arachne tossed her head, and answered 
scornfully : 

" 'Well do I know it, yet Athena dares not 
try her skill with mine.' 

"'Dares not?' repeated the old dame, in 
tones that should have made Arachne tremble. 
'Dares not, say you? Foolish maiden, be 
warned in time.' 

"But Arachne was too proud to yield, and 
she still persisted, even though the old dame 
had dropped her mantle, and stood revealed 
as the great goddess herself. 

"'Be it so,' said Athena, sternly, and both 
began to weave. 



THE WONDERFUL SPINNERS 49 

"For hours their shuttles flew in and out. 
Arachne's work was wonderful, but for her 
theme she had chosen the weakness and the 
failure of the gods. Athena pictured forth 
their greatness. The sky was her loom, and 
from the rainbow she chose her colours, and 
when her work was finished and its splendours 
spanned the heavens, Arachne realized that 
she had failed. 

"Ashamed and miserable, she sought to 
hang herself in the meshes of her web. 

"Nay, rash maid,' spoke Athena; 'thou 
shalt not die, but live to be the mother of a 
great race, the most wonderful spinners on 
earth.' 

"Even as Athena spoke, Arachne grew 
smaller and smaller, until not a maiden, but 
a spider, hung from that marvellous web. 

"And now, my friends," finished Mrs. 
Orb Weaver, "need I tell you that we are 
the wonderful race of which Athena spoke, 
and need I add that we have inherited 
Arachne's marvellous skill, and are truly the 



50 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

most wonderful spinners on earth? Now 
I am hungry and the meeting is adjourned." 

"So am I," added Daddy Long Legs, 
"not adjourned, but hungry, and, by the 
way, do you imagine any one believes that 
old story?" 

He winked at Ruth, and then moved away 
as fast as his long legs would carry him. 





CHAPTER IV 

MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN 

" Thou art welcome to the town, but why come here 
To bleed a fellow poet gaunt like thee? 
Alas! the little blood I have is dear, 
And thin will be the banquet drawn from me. 

— Bryant. 

THAT horrid mosquito," said Ruth, 
waking with a start, and slapping 
her cheek. 
"Aha! you didn't get me that time," 
answered a thin, high-pitched voice! 

Ruth sat up. She had been asleep under 
the apple tree, but she was quite awake now. 
"Where are you?" she asked, "and are you 
really talking?" 

"I seem to be," answered the mosquito, 

51 



52 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"though you tried to finish me just now. 
I bear no ill-will, though. I am quite used 
to being an outlaw. What is more, I don't 
intend to be any better. I shall go on biting 
people as much as I please. I must have my 
meals as well as the rest of the world. People 
seem to forget that fiact." 

"But just biting people " began Ruth. 

"It isn't just biting," put in the mosquito. 
"It really isn't biting at all. I have a sharp 
little instrument to pierce the skin of the 
fellow I choose for my dinner, and the best 
kind of sucking pump to pump up his blood. 
That's the way I get my meals. It is differ- 
ent with my mate. He is a harmless sort of 
fellow. He can't even sing, and he likes such 
baby food as the nectar of flowers. Now 
tell me why I am different from other insect 



musicians.' 9 



She fixed her big eyes on Ruth, who moved 
uneasily, and answered with not a little hesi- 
tation : 

"I — I — really don't know." 



MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN 53 

"I'm a female. That's why. In all the 
orders, so far as I know, the singers are males. 
Naturally I am proud of being an exception. 
Well, you didn't know that. Do you know 
why I don't care for science?" 

"It is just like an examination," thought 
Ruth, and again she answered* 

"I don't know." 

"Of course you don't," said Mrs. Mosquito. 
"Is there anything you do know? Well, 
I suppose I must tell you. I don't care for 
science, because it interferes too much. Once 
upon a time men were our friends. We 
not only had nice juicy meals from them, but 
we had their rain barrels as nurseries for our 
children. Of course, what they said about 
us, when we came too near them, was not 
always complimentary, but a mosquito, at- 
tending strictly to business, doesn't mind a 
little thing like that. But now come these 
fellows who know so much, or think they 
know so much. We carry malaria, they say, 
whatever that is, and the rain barrel must 



54 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

go, because it helps to breed mosquitoes. 
Not only that, these interfering fellows seem 
to spend their time thinking up ways to finish 
us. Well, I sting them every chance I get. 

"But alas! the rain barrel is going. I was 
hatched in one of the few to be found in 
these sad days. I was a lively baby, I can 
tell you. Young mosquitoes are called wrig- 
glers and, true to my name, I wriggled for all 
I was worth. Now, when you know that my 
mother had laid something like three hundred 
eggs, and all had hatched into wrigglers as 
lively as myself, you can imagine the time 
there was in that old rain barrel." 

"But why," asked Ruth "are you called 
wrigglers when you are young, and mosquitoes 
when you are grown up?" 

"Why are you called baby when you are 
born, girl when you are half grown, and 
woman when you are quite grown?" replied 
Mrs. Mosquito, and Ruth said no more. 

"Now," went on Mrs. Mosquito, "I should 
like to tell you more about wrigglers, how 



MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN 55 

they stand on their heads and breathe with 
their tails, and how they shed their skins when 
they become full-grown mosquitoes, but I 
haven't time. The others are coming." 
" Others? " repeated Ruth. " What others? " 
"The members of the Diptera order of 
course," answered Mrs. Mosquito, with an 
important air. "You see, I found you 
sleeping under the tree and I knew you 
wanted to learn about the things that are 
worth while, and as we are very worth while, 
I sent a friend to tell all the members of our 
order to meet in this spot." 

"Exactly what that young mosquito told 
me," said Mrs. Hessian Fly, buzzing up 
excitedly. 

She was a dusky -winged creature, scarcely 
more than an eighth of an inch long. 
"What is the Diptera anyhow?" 
"Why, you are one," explained Mrs. Mos- 
quito, with a superior smile. "It is quite a tax 
to know things for everybody," she said to 
Ruth, "but you see I am around men so 



56 THE REAL FAIR! FOLK 

much I learn a great deal. I once attended 
a meeting of the men who think themselves 
wise. I wasn't invited, you understand, but 
I went, and I attracted much attention too. 
Well, this is what I heard: The audience 
will please listen, it concerns you all: 

"The members of the order Diptera have 
two guazy wings and two thread-like organs 
with knobs at the end in the place where 
most other insects have a second pair of 
wings. Their mouth is framed for sucking, 
and sometimes for piercing. Only a few 
make cocoons. Their larvae are called mag- 
gots, and they have no legs. Some are vege- 
table eaters, some carnivorous, and many are 
scavengers.' They said all that about us, 
and maybe it's true, but I tell you every man 
in that meeting felt my sting." 

"I don't care what they say," remarked 
Mrs. Hessian Fly. "To be talked about 
shows our importance, though I have never 
doubted mine. My family is a Revolutionary 
one, as my ancestors came over with the 



MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN 51 

Hessians. Of course you have heard of 
them?" 

"No, I am only interested in the people 
who live now," answered Mrs. Mosquito. 

"Well, I live now," said Mrs. Hessian 
Fly, "and I am interesting enough for any 
use. I don't make galls like so many flies, but 
simply lay my eggs in young blades of wheat, 
and when my little red babies hatch, they 
have only to crawl down and fasten them- 
selves to the tender stalk, just below the 
ground. Don't they love the sap, though? 
A field of wheat looks pretty sick after they 
have worked on it a while. Sometimes the 
wheat midges help them and then it is good- 
by to the wheat. Mrs. Wheat Midge, you 
know, lays her eggs in the opening flower 
of the grain, and her babies eat the pollen 
and ovule. You may guess what happens 
then." 

"I think it is real horrid to do that," said 
Ruth. 

"And what do you know about it, pray?" 



58 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

retorted Mrs. Hessian Fly. "We must all 
eat to live." 

"We certainly must," said a house fly, 
flitting up with a loud buzz. "I have just 
escaped with my life. A cook wanted to 
take it because I tried to lay some eggs on 
her meat. What better place could a fly 
ask, I'd like to know? If Mrs. Blow Fly had 
been there, she would have put her eggs on 
that meat, screen or no screen. She is a most 
determined body and she can drop her eggs 
through the finest mesh, if she makes up her 
mind to do it." 

"Is Mrs. Blow Fly that big, buzzing, blue- 
bodied thing that is such a botheration?" 
asked Ruth. 

"She's big and blue, and she buzzes, or 
talks, with her wings, as we all do," answered 
Mrs. House Fly, with dignity, "but she isn't 
a thing. She's a fly. There are hundreds 
of different kinds of flies, I'd like you to 
understand. The kind like me live in houses, 
but some prefer stables. They seem to like 



MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN 59 

to stay with horses and cows, and are rather 
common. They have beautiful eyes, though, 
and plenty of them. Would you believe it, 
my head is nearly all eyes? I have thou- 
sands of tiny ones in my two big ones, not to 
mention the three single ones at the top of 
my head." 

"Gracious!" said Ruth. "No wonder it 
is so hard to catch you. But doesn't it make 
you dizzy when you walk upside down, 
and how do you keep from falling?" 

"Of course we don't get dizzy and it is 
easy enough to keep from falling if you have 
pads and fine hairs on your feet. They 
just hold you to the place you are standing 
on. Men seem to consider this quite a won- 
derful thing. One of them has written some 
poetry about it. This is how it goes: 

" What a wonderful fellow is Mi-. Fly, 
He goes where he pleases, low or high, 
And can walk just as well with his feet to the sky 
As I can on the floor." 

"Say," spoke up a slim, narrow-winged 
creature with abnormally long legs, "I'm 



60 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

one of your relations, though I can't walk 
upside down." 

"You?" repeated Mrs. House Fly, con- 
temptuously. "Why, you can't walk de- 
cently right side up." 

"It is true," sighed the crane fly. "I 
haven't even the grace of Daddy Long Legs, 
fori 

"My six long legs all here and there 
Oppress my bosom with despair." 

"Well, I don't care about your legs," 
said Mrs. House Fly. "I was speaking of 
my relations — my smart relations. All are 
not smart. I have some who need only bite 
the twig of a tree and lay their eggs there, 
and what do you suppose happens? A 
round ball grows over the spot and men call 
it a gall, but it is really a tiny house for my 
cousin's babies. I have another cousin, 
whose name is Cecidomyia strobiloides. It 
is long for such a tiny creature, but she bears 
up very well under it." 

"I couldn't ever pronounce it," said Ruth. 
"What does she do, please?" 



MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN 61 

"She flies to a willow tree in the Spring, 
before the leaves are out, and with a spear 
on the end of her body she cuts a gash in the 
tip end of the bud, just where it is most 
tender and juicy. She lays an egg in the 
gash; then goes to another twig, and does 
the same thing, until she has laid as many 
eggs as she wishes. When her babies hatch, 
they do not look at all like their gauzy-winged 
little gray mother, nor do they care for sun 
or air. In fact, they never stir from their 
cells. They can eat, though, and the sap 
of the tree is their food." 

"You all seem to think a good deal of 
eating," said Ruth. 

"Of course. Isn't that what we are 
hatched for? But my cousin's babies have 
lost their appetites by the Fall, and then they 
go to sleep. They wake up in the Spring, 
and, strange to say, they have grown exactly 
like their mother and are ready to lay eggs 
on some more willow twigs. Very likely the 
willow tree does not care to have them do it, 



62 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

for the twig where their cradle is does not 
grow into a branch as the tree meant it should. 
Instead, the small leaves just crowd upon 
each other, until they look like a green pine 



cone." 



"I hope it will never happen to my willow 
tree," said Ruth; "but please tell me more 
things. They are very interesting." 

"Interesting? I should say so. Indeed, 
I could go on talking all day, and not tell 
you one half the things we can do. But life 
is too uncertain to waste it all in talking." 

"Life is certainly full of accidents," buzzed 
a big horse fly. "I'm here to tell Mrs. 
Mosquito, if she is looking for the messenger 
she sent out a while ago, she'd better make 
up her mind never to see her again. She went 
too near a horrid warty toad, and you can 
guess the rest." 

"We can," sighed Mrs. Mosquito. "If 
it isn't frogs, it's toads and " 

"Often it's birds," finished Mrs. Horse 
Fly, "and they are the worst of all." 



MRS. MOSQUITO AND HER KIN 63 

"Such subjects remind me that I am 
hungry," said Mrs. Mosquito, "and I'm off 
to find a juicy somebody for dinner. I think 
I shall lay some eggs too." 

"I wonder if it was my toad who ate that 
mosquito," thought Ruth, as she watched the 
audience fly away. 





CHAPTER V 



RUTH HEARS ABOUT SOME WATER BABIES 



An inner impulse rent the veil 
Of his old husk, from head to tail 
Came out clear plates of saphire mail. 

— Tennyson. 

RUTH lay in the grass, under the old 
willow tree, watching a dainty little 
*■ creature with a pale green body and 
four gauzy wings flashing with all the tints 
of the rainbow. 

"What a beautiful dragon fly," she said, 
half under her breath. "I never saw one so 
lovely before. I wonder if it is a dragon 
fly. Do you think it is, Belinda?" 

"I am not a dragon fly," came in answer 

64 



THE WATER BABIES 65 

from the dainty creature herself. "I'm a lace- 
wing. Why don't you use your eyes? It's 
about time you learned something." 

"I do want to learn," said Ruth meekly. 
"I am trying all the time. I wish you would 
tell me things. I thought you were prettier 
than most dragon flies." 

Mrs. Lacewing looked pleased. "Now you 
show your taste," she said, "and I am quite 
willing to help you. Just wait a little while, 
and see what happens. Then if you don't 

like it, well " And without waiting to say 

more, or to let Ruth thank her, she was off. 

"I think she means to come back," said 
Ruth, expecting, she scarcely knew w T hat, 
"and it w T ill be nice, I am sure. Oh, Belinda, 
isn't it just like living in Fairyland, since 
we can hear what they talk about? There! 
what did I tell you! It is Fairyland." 

Ruth added this with a rapturous little 
squeeze, for just then she saw the lacewing 
flying toward her, and with her many other 
beautiful winged creatures. 



66 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"The order Neuroptera, or the nerve wings," 
said the lace wing, flitting close to Ruth, "that 
is some of them." Then she introduced Ruth 
as a friend, adding in a self-satisfied tone: 
"She thinks I'm beautiful, and I quite agree 
with her, don't you?" 

Apparently the audience did. Of course 
she was beautiful, and, besides, she carried 
a scent bag which was not at all pleasant, 
and they knew they were likely to have the 
full benefit of it if they contradicted or 
displeased her. 

"Now we'll begin," she went on, with 
the air of one who had settled all difficulties, 
but the next second she stopped, and, looking 
at a group of caddice flies, she asked sternly: 

"Why are you here? and bless my wings, 
if there aren't dragon flies, and stone flies, 
and, who would believe it, May flies. Now 
you know that not one of you belongs to our 
order." 

"Well, we belonged to it once," answered 
a caddice fly, speaking for all. 



THE WATER BABIES 67 

"But I don't understand," began Ruth. 

" Then dcn't say anything," put in a dragon 
fly, darting before her. "Keep quiet and 
listen, and you'll learn things. Besides, it 
is very rude to interrupt people." 

Ruth felt snubbed, and tried to turn her 
back on the dragon fly, but, as he seemed to 
be everywhere at once, she found it impossible. 

The caddice fly was still speaking. "We 
can't always remember," she said, "and 
I should like to know what right the wise 
men have to take us out of one order and 
put us in a sub-order." 

"Right is the last thing they think about," 
spoke up a stone fly, "but I really care very 
little whether I'm called Neuroptera, as I 
was once, or Plecoptera, as I am now. Life 
is just as uncertain and full of accidents. 
Why, my friends, it is the greatest wonder I 
lived to grow up." She sighed and began 
to fan her long, fat body with her broad 
fore wings. 

"You know I was once a water baby." 



68 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

" Water baby ? " repeated Ruth. " Wouldn't 
your wings " 

"No they wouldn't," said Mrs. Stone Fly, 
"because I hadn't any wings then. I was 
homely, flat, six-legged, and just the colour 
of the stone under which I spent most of my 
young life, hiding. I had to hide, or the 
boys would have found me and used rae for 
bait. Think of it! Bait!" 

And Mrs. Stone Fly, quite overcome, could 
say no more. 

"We came to make a few remarks," said 
one of a swarm of May flies that had been 
hovering about, "but we must go now. Life 
is too short for talking. " 

"Poor things," said Mrs. Lacewing, "life 
with them is indeed short. No wonder they 
are called Ephemerida. Think of living only 
for a day!" 

"But they lived a long time as Nymphs," 
said the dragon fly, who was still darting 
about, now here, now there, like a flash of 
living flame. "I know, because they were 



THE WATER BABIES 69 

water babies like me. They could eat too, 
then, and the number of times they changed 
their skins was a caution. Why, my friends, 
they even change them alter they leave the 
water and have their wings. No other insect 
does that. 

"Now, my story, in the beginning, is 
something like theirs. I, too, was born in 
the bottom of the pond and, no doubt, I 
played with some of you, or I may have 
tried to make a meal of you. Well, if I did 
I failed, and I shouldn't be blamed for the 
sins of my youth. All of us eat when we 
can get the chance, and there's no use in 
being sorry for the dinner. I suppose you 
would like to hear how I managed to get 
into the pond?" He looked at Ruth, who 
nodded her head, though she was still laugh- 
ing at the idea of being sorry for a dinner. 

"You see," explained Mrs. Lacewing, "the 
dinner might be your nearest relation." 

"Just so," agreed the dragon fly. "Now 
my mother, for of course I had a mother, 



70 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

though like most pond people I never knew 

her " 



"Do get to the point," said an ant lion 
impatiently; "we are all growing old." 

"Well, the point is my mother," answered 
the dragon fly, undisturbed, "but first I 
should say that I no longer belong to the 
order Neuroptera, but to the sub-order 
Ordonata. It means something about a 
tooth, but if I have any teeth, I don't know it. 
Now to get back to the point: my mother 
flew down to the water one day, and when 
she left it there was a cluster of small yellow 
eggs floating on the surface. I came from 
one of those eggs, and I didn't look like a 
dragon fly, I can tell you. I had six tiny 
spider-like legs, but not a sign of wings, and 
when I breathed it was not as I do now, like 
all perfect insects, through openings on each 
side of my body. I had gills, and a tube 
at the end of my body brought fresh water 
to them. This tube was a funny affair. 
It really helped me along, for when I spurted 



THE WATER BABIES 71 

water through it I was pushed forward. 
Then I had a wonderful mouth, with a 
long under lip, that I could dart out and 
catch anything within reach, while I did 
not need to move my body at all." 

"Just like frogs and toads!" cried Ruth. 

"Not at all," answered the dragon fly. 
"They only send out their tongues. I send 
out my whole under lip. If you could only 
keep quiet you would not show your igno- 
rance so plainly." 

Once more Ruth wsls snubbed, and the 
dragon fly continued: 

"In time I became a pupa." 

Ruth looked the question she dared not ask. 

"I'll explain," said the dragon fly, amiably. 
"Larva — that's what I was at first — means 
mask, or something that hides you. You 
will find out in time, if you do not know 
now, that the larva of an insect is really a 
mask which hides its true form. The plural 
of the word is larvae. Now pupa, plural 
pupae, means baby. It is usually the state 



72 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

of sleep in which the larva lies after spinning 
its cocoon or cradle, but in my case it didn't 
suit at all. Dragon flies, far from sleeping 
in the pupa state, seem to grow more active, 
and their appetites are larger. Indeed, I 
will say right here, everything that came my 
way, and was not too big, went into my 
mouth. In fact, I finally reached my limit 
and burst." 

"Gracious!" cried Ruth in a shocked tone. 
"How did you get yourself together again?" 

"Well, you see, the whole of me didn't 
burst. I simply grew too big for my skin, 
or my pupa case, as the wise men call it, and 
it cracked right open. I was climbing on a 
water plant when this happened, for all at 
once I had felt a longing to leave the water 
and get to the open air. My first effort 
was to get rid of the useless old shell which 
still clung to me, but I had quite a tussle before 
I could do s r , and afterward I was very weak 
and tired. But the result was worth all my 
labour, for I found myself with these four 



THE WATER BABIES 73 

wings, and the rest of my beautiful body, and 
I needed only to dry myself before sailing 
away on the wind, the swiftest thing on 
wings, and the most renowned mosquito 
killer on record. Of course, my legs aren't 
arranged for walking. Why should they be? 
All six of them go forward, as if they were 
reaching for something, and so they are, 
reaching for something to eat. Woe betide 
any insect I start after. I catch him every 
time. I ought to, for I have thousands of 
eyes, and I can fly forward, backward, or 
any old way. I never stop to eat my 
dinner either. I hold it, and eat it as I go. 
Now if I had time, I would tell you how the 
children of Japan make a holiday, and go 
out to catch us for pets, and how they sing 

pretty songs to us and " 

"It is about time you stopped," interrupted 
Mrs. Ant Lion. "You have tried our pa- 
tience long enough, and I mean to speak 
this very minute. I've been told I am 
much like the dragon flies," she added to 



74 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

the company, "but my babies are not at all 
like theirs. They do not belong to the water, 
and I am glad of it. I'm tired of water 
babies. I've heard so much of them to-day. 
My mother had the good sense to lay her 
eggs in sand, and I shall do the same. I 
was hungry from the minute I was hatched, 
and I would have run after something to eat 
right away, only I found I couldn't. My 
legs were fixed in such a way I had to walk 
backward." 

"Backward?" echoed Ruth. 

"Yes, backward. So there was nothing 
to do but to dig a trap for my dinner, and 
I set about it pretty quick. No one showed 
me how, either. I simply used my shovel- 
shaped head, and before long I had made 
quite a pit, broad and rounded at the top, 
and sloping to a point like a funnel at the 
bottom. You have seen them, of course?" 

"I think I have," answered Ruth. 

"They are not hard to find if you keep 
your eyes open," went on the ant lion. 



THE WATER BABIES 15 

"Well, as I said, I made one of these pits, 
and in the funnel end I lay in wait for ants. 
Soon one came along, slipped over the edge, 
as I expected, and tumbled right into my 
open mouth. Nor was she the only one. 
Some were strong enough to turn, even while 
they were slipping, and start to crawl up 
again, but I just heaped some sand on my 
head and threw it at them, and down they 
would come. My aim was always good, so 
were the ants, though I only sucked their 
juice. Of course I did not leave their skins 
around to frighten away other ants. I 
piled them on my head, and gave them a 
toss, which sent them some distance away. 
After a time I stopped eating, and made a 
cocoon. Then I went to sleep ! — for many 
days — during which I changed wonderfully, 
as any one must know who has seen ant 
lion babies and now sees me. This is all of 
my story, and I suppose we will hear about 
another tiresome water baby." 

"You shall hear about a water baby," 



76 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

replied Mrs. Caddice Fly, waving her anten- 
nae by way of salute, "but tiresome will 
do for your own homely children. I will 
begin by saying that, with the accidents 
of life, it is a wonder that any of us are here. 




I MADE ONE OF THESE PITS AND IN THE FUNNEL END I LAY IN 
WAIT FOR ANTS' " 

When we caddice flies were hatched we were 
soft, white, six-footed babies. We were 
called worms, though we were not worms. 
Think of it ! Soft bodied, with not very 
strong legs, white, and living at the bottom 



THE WATER BABIES 77 

of the pond. Could anything be worse? 
No wonder we seemed to do nothing at 
first but try to get away from things that 
wanted to eat us. I tell you, pond life is 
most exciting. After a while the front part 
of our bodies and our heads began to turn 
brown, and, as the rest of us was white, and 
seemed likely to stay so, we all decided to 
make a case or house to cover our white part. 
So we set to work and of bits of sticks, tiny 
stones, and broken shells, glued together with 
silk from our own bodies, we made these 
cases. True, many of us went down the throat 
of Belostoma, the giant water bug, before we 
had finished, but those of us who didn't 
crawled into our little houses, locking our- 
selves in by two strong hooks which grew 
at the end of our bodies. We could move 
about, but of course we carried our houses 
with us and " 

"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Ant Lion. 
"Why didn't you stay still?" 

"Because we didn't wish to," answered 



78 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

the caddice fly. "We had to eat, and we 
had to get away from those who wished to 
eat us. At last we went to sleep, after first 
spinning a veil of silk over our front and back 
doors. I can't answer for the others, but 
when I awoke I tore open my silken door, 
threw aside my pupa skin, and found I had 
wings. Since then I have had a new life, 
but even that has its enemies, and one never 
knows what will happen." 

With which doleful saying Mrs. Caddice 
Fly sailed away to the pond to lay some eggs 
among the water plants. 

"Dear me," said Mrs. Lacewing, "we seem 
to need something cheerful after that. I 
am glad I never lived in the water, if it makes 
one so blue. Now I shall tell you what my 
babies will do, not what I have done. Of 
course it is the same thing, but it is looking 
forward rather than to the past. After 
this meeting is over I shall lay some eggs, 
on just what plant I haven't yet decided, 
but it will be in the midst of *sl herd of aphides. 



THE WATER BABIES 79 

Be sure of that. Aphides are plant lice," 
she explained, seeing the question in Ruth's 
eyes. "You will learn more of them later. 
Now as to the way I shall lay my eggs: 
First, from the tip of my body I shall drop 
a thick gummy fluid, and draw it out into 
a long, stiff, upright thread, and upon the 
end of this thread I shall fasten an egg. 
I shall lay a number of eggs in this way, each 
on its own pole, so to speak. Some people 
may think my way odd, but it is very wise. 
A lacewing knows her children. They are 
not beautiful. Such short-legged, spindle- 
shaped things couldn't be pretty, but they 
are sturdy, and they have an endless appe- 
tite." 

"I should think they would feel lonely on 
those ridiculous poles," said Mrs. Ant Lion. 

"Not at all. They are not there long 
enough to feel lonely. They are in too 
great a hurry for dinner. They are hungry, 
with a big H. Now just suppose I should 
lay my eggs as the rest of you do, ever so 



80 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

many together, what do you think would 
happen? I will tell you in a few words. 
The dear child who came out first would 
eat all his unhatched brothers and sisters. 
He doesn't, only because he can't reach them." 

"It's a wonder he doesn't eat his pole," 
said Ruth, her face showing what she thought 
of such babies. 

"Yes, it is," agreed Mrs. Lacewing, "but, 
strange to say, he doesn't seem to care for 
it. Indeed, he leaves it as quickly as he can, 
and goes hunting. Of course he needn't 
hunt far, for he is in the midst of aphides. 
Every mother looks out for that, and really 
it is quite a pleasure to see him suck the juice 
from aphid after aphid, holding each one 
high in the air in his own funny way. So 
you can see why lacewing babies are friends 
to the farmer and the fruit grower, for aphides 
kill plants and trees, and young lace wings 
kill aphides. They can eat and eat and eat, 
and never grow tired of aphides. Indeed, 
they really deserve their name — aphis- 



THE WATER BABIES 81 

lion. When they do stop eating it is to fall 
into their long sleep, but first they weave a 
cocoon as beautiful as a seed pearl, in which 
they change into a most lovely creature — ■ 
one like me. Now our meeting is adjourned, 
and I hope a certain person has learned a 
few things." 

"Oh, ever and ever so many, thank you," 
answered Ruth gratefully. 





CHAPTER VI 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 



Oh, sweet and tiny cousins that belong. 
One to the fields, the other to the hearth, 
Both have your sunshine. 

— Leigh Hunt. 

RUTH and Belinda were crossing the 
meadow, when a big grasshopper 
^ made a flying leap, and landed on 
Belinda's head. 

"Do excuse me," he said; "I missed my 
aim. No one hurt, I hope, or frightened?" 

"Oh, no," answered Ruth. "Belinda is 
real sensible; she isn't afraid of anything, 
and I am just as glad — as glad — to see you. 
Maybe you will " 

82 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 83 

Ruth hesitated, hoping he would know what 
she meant to say. She was sure he could 
tell her a great many things, if only he would. 
He was so polite and nice; besides, he looked 
very wise. 

"I suppose you're going to the concert," 
said Mr. Grasshopper, after waiting a second 
for Ruth to finish her sentence. 

"Concert?" she repeated, opening her eyes 
wide. " What concert? " 

"Why the Straightwings' Concert. They 
give one every sunny day in Summer. Didn't 
you know that? Dear me, where were you 
hatched and where have you been living 
since? Well, why do you stare at me so? 
Don't you like my looks?" 

"Oh, yes," Ruth hastened to answer. 
"You look very nice — something like a 
little old man." 

"I've heard that before, and there's a 
story about it. Shall I tell it?" 

"Yes, please; I just love stories." 

"Very well. Once upon a time, long, 



84 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

long ago, there lived in Greece a beautiful 
young man named Tithonus. Now it 
chanced that Tithonus loved Aurora, the 
Goddess of the Dawn." 

" Greece? " said Ruth. " Why, that's where 
Arachna lived, the one who turned into a 
spider, you know?" 

"Do you want to hear my story or don't 
you?" asked Mr. Grasshopper, sharply. 

"I do want to hear it. I really do." 

"Very well, then, don't interrupt me again. 
As I was saying, Tithonus loved Aurora, and 
every morning he would lie in the meadow 
and wait for her coming. Then the fair 
goddess would give him her sweetest smiles. 
But one day Tithonus grew pale and ill, and 
all the love of Aurora could not make him 
well again. 'Alas!' he cried, 'I am mortal, 
and I must die/ 'Nay,' answered Aurora, 
'you shall not die, for I will win for you the 
gift of the gods/ And, speeding to the 
mighty Jupiter, she begged that Tithonus 
might be as a god, and live forever. So 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 85 

for a while they were happy together, but as 
the years passed Tithonus grew old and 
bent, for Aurora had forgotten to ask that 
he might always be young. Grieving much, 
Tithonus lay under the shadow of the trees 
and sighed through the long days. 

"'Ah, my Tithonus,' whispered Aurora, 
'I love you too well to see you thus unhappy. 
No more shall you be sad or bend beneath 
an old man's weakness, but, as a child of 
the meadow, happy and free, you shall sing 
and dance through the golden hours.' In 
that moment Tithonus became a grasshop- 
per, and ever since then his descendants have 
danced and sung in the sunshine. That's 
the end of the story. I might have made it 
twice as long, but Summer is so short, and 
I want to dance." 

"It was a very nice story," said Ruth, 
"but do you really dance?" 

"Of course, our kind of dancing." 

"But don't you do lots of other things 
too?" 



86 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

: 'Yes; we give concerts, and we eat. We 
are hatched with big appetites, and a strong 
pair of jaws, and we start right in to use 
them on the tender grasses around us. We 
only follow our instincts, though men call 
it doing damage. You eat, don't you?" 

"Why, yes, but I don't eat grass, you 
know." 

"Because it isn't your food. You see it's 
this way: In the kingdom of nature all 
creatures have a certain work to do, and each 
is exactly fitted for its place, for all are gov- 
erned by laws more wonderful than any man 
has made. Not that I wish to .speak lightly 
of man, he is good enough in his place, but 
he is apt to think himself the whole thing, 
and he isn't. Maybe he doesn't know that 
for every human creature on earth there 
are millions of plants and animals." 

"Oh," said Ruth, "really and truly?" 

"Really and truly. You couldn't begin 
to count them, and do you know, if the earth 
was to grow quite bare, with only one living 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 87 

plant left on it, the seeds from that one 
plant could make it green again in a very 
few years. But if certain insects were left 
without other creatures to eat and keep 
them down, the poor old earth would soon 
be bare once more. So you see there must 
be laws to fix all these things. Nature bal- 
ances one set of creatures against the other, 
so there will not be too many of any kind." 

Ruth had listened in open-eyed astonish- 
ment. Surely this was a very wise grasshopper. 

"You know a great deal," she managed 
to say at last. 

"Yes, I do," was the answer. "I heard 
two men say the things I've just told you. 
They were walking across this meadow, 
and I listened and remembered. You see, I 
believe in learning even from men. But 
do listen to the concert — we are right in 
the middle of it." 

They certainly were in the middle of it. 
The zip, zip, zip, zee-e-ee-e of the meadow 
grasshoppers seemed to come from every 




THE WISE GRASSHOPPEB 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 89 

part of the sunny field, while the short- 
horns, or flying locusts, were gently fiddling 
under the grass blades, their wing covers 
serving for strings, and their thighs as 
fiddle bows, and the field crickets, not to be 
outdone, were scraping away with the finely 
notched veins of the fore wings upon their 
hind wings. 

The longhorns were also there; some in 
green; others in brown or gray, all drumming 
away on the drum heads set in their fore 
wings. 

"You would hear katydid too," said Mr. 
Grasshopper, "only he refuses to sing in 
the day. He hides under the leaves of the 
trees while it is light, and comes out at 
night. If you think me wise, I don't know 
what you would say of him. He is such a 
solemn-looking chap, always dressed in green, 
and his wing covers are like leaves. You 
might think him afraid if you saw him wave 
his long antennae, but he isn't. He is curious, 
that's all. It is a high sort of curiosity, too, 



90 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

like mine — a wish to learn. I suppose you 
know we don't make our music with our 
mouths?" he asked suddenly. "Well, that 
is something," he added, as Ruth nodded 
"Yes." 

"I sing with the upper part of my wing 
covers, but my cousins, the shorthorns, sing 
with their hind legs. Why do you laugh? 
Aren't legs as good to sing with as anything 
else?" 

"I — I suppose so," said Ruth. "It 
sounds funny, because I am not used to that 
kind of singing. " 

"Just it. Now I shall tell you a few more 
facts about us. We belong to the order of 
the Straightwings, or the Orthoptera, as the 
wise men call it." 

" Will you please tell me what that means? " 
asked Ruth. "Do all insects belong to some- 
thing ending in tera? Most everything 
I have talked to does except toads and 
spiders. " 

"And they are not insects," said Mr. 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 91 

Grasshopper. "Not even the spiders. The 
word insect means cut into parts, and all 
insects have three parts, a head, and behind 
that the thorax or chest, and the abdomen. 
Then, too, they always have six jointed legs. 
Now maybe you have noticed that spiders 
are not built on this plan? There are only 
two parts of them. The head and thorax 
are in one. It is called the cephalothorax. 
I'd feel dreadfully carrying such a thing 
around with me, but the spiders do not seem 
to mind it. Their other part is their abdomen. 
I heard a little boy say it was like a squashy 
bag; and between ourselves that is about 
what it is. Of course you know that spiders 
have eight legs and that alone would settle 
the question. True insects never have but 
six. Now as to the orders: All insects are 
divided into groups, and it is something about 
the wings which gives them their names. 
That is why they all end in ptera, because 
ptera comes from pteron, a word which 
means wing. It isn't an English word, you 



92 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

know, but is taken from a language called 
Greek." 

Ruth listened very patiently. If she had 
heard all this in school it would have seemed 
very dry, but when a grasshopper is telling 
you things it is of course quite different. 

"But I am sure I can never remember it 
all," she said. 

"Ah, yes, you can. Remembering is easy 
if you only practise it." 

"Why, that's like the White Queen," 
cried Ruth. "She practised believing things 
till she could believe six impossible things at 
once, before breakfast." 

"I don't know the person," said the grass- 
hopper. 

"She lived in the Looking Glass Country," 
began Ruth, but Mr. Grasshopper was not 
listening. 

"You have met the Diptera, or Two Wings," 
he said. "That's easy. Then you've met the 
Neuroptera, or Nerve Wings. That's easy 
too. And now you have met the Ortho- 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 93 

ptera, or Straight wings, meaning me, and if 
I'm not easy, I should like to know who is. 
You see our wings are " 

"Wings?" said Ruth in surprise. 

"Of course. Look here," and opening 
his straight wing covers, Mr. Grasshopper 
showed as nice a pair of wings as one could 
wish to possess. "Not all of us have wings," 
he added, folding his own away, "but those of 
us who have not live under stones. Our 
order includes graspers, walkers, runners, 
and jumpers. Not all are musicians. The 
graspers live only in hot countries. Maybe 
you have seen the picture of one of them — 
the praying mantis he is called, just because 
he holds up his front legs as if he were praying. 
But it isn't prayers he is saying. He is 
waiting for some insect to come near enough 
so he may grab and eat it. That will do for 
him. Next come the walkers. The walking 
stick is one, and he isn't a good walker either, 
but the stick part of the name fits him. 
He is dreadfully thin. There is one on 



94 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

that twig now, and he looks so much like the 
twig you can scarcely tell which is which." 

"Why, so he does," said Ruth, poking her 
finger at the twig Mr. Grasshopper pointed 
out. "Isn't he funny?" 

"Indeed," grumbled the walking stick. 
"Maybe you think it polite to come staring 
at a fellow, and sticking your finger at him, 
and then call him funny, but I don't. I 
want to look like a twig. That's why I am 
holding myself so stiff. I have a cousin in 
the Tropics who has wings just like leaves." 

"Yes," added the grasshopper, "and his 
wife is so careless she just drops her eggs 
from the tree to the ground and never cares 
how they fall." 

"Well, if that suits her no one else need 
object," snapped the walking stick. "I be- 
lieve in each one minding his own business." 

"An excellent idea," said Mr. Grasshopper. 
"Now let me see, where was I? Oh! the 
runners; but you'll excuse me, I will not 
speak of them at all. They include croton 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 95 

bugs and cock roaches, and it is quite enough 
to mention their names. With the jumpers 
it is different. They are the most important 
members of the order. I'm a jumper, I am 
also a true grasshopper. You can tell that 
by my long slender antennae, longer than 
my body. For that reason I am called a 
longhorn, but my antennae are really not 
horns." 

"I don't see how any one could call them 
horns," said Ruth. 

"No more do I, but some people have queer 
ideas about things. Well, I don't care much. 
There is my mate over there. Do you 
notice the sword-shaped ovipositor at the 
end of her body? She uses it to make holes 
in the ground and also to lay her eggs in the 
hole after it is finished. Yes, she is very 
careful. Her eggs stay there all Winter, and 
hatch in the Spring, not into grubs or cater- 
pillars, or anything of that sort. They will 
be grasshoppers, small, it is true, and without 
wings, but true grasshoppers, which need 



96 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

only to grow and change their skins to be 
just like us. And I'm sure we have nothing 
to be ashamed of. We have plenty of eyes, 
six legs, and ears on our forelegs, not like you 
people who have queer things on the sides 
of your heads. Such a place for hearing! 
but every one to his taste. Well, to go on, 
we have wing covers, and lovely wings under 
them, a head full of lips and jaws, and a jump 
that is a jump. What more could one wish? 
Do you know what our family name is?" 

Ruth didn't know they had a family name, 
so of course she could not say what it was. 

"It is Locustidae," said Mr. Grasshopper, 
answering his own question. "Funny too, 
for there isn't a locust among us. Locusts 
are the shorthorned grasshoppers — that is, 
their antennae are shorter than ours. They 
are cousins, but we are not proud of them. 
They are not very good." 

"No one is asking you to be proud," 
said a grasshopper, jumping from a nearby 
grass blade. She had a plump gray and green 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 97 

body, red legs, and brown wings, with a 
broad lemon-yellow band. 

"What's the matter with me?" she de- 
manded. "I guess you don't know what 
you are talking about. It's the Western 
fellow that is so bad. We Eastern locusts 
are different." 

"Well, I suppose you are," agreed the 
longhorn. "I know the Western locusts 
travel in swarms and eat every green thing 
in sight. They are called the hateful grass- 
hoppers." 

"No one can say that our family has 
ever been called hateful or anything like it," 
said a little cricket with a merry chirp. "We 
are considered very cheery company, and 
one of the sweetest stories ever written was 
about our English cousin, the house cricket." 

"I am sure you mean 'The Cricket on the 
Hearth,'" said Ruth. "It is a lovely story, 
and I think crickets are just dear. Are you 
a house cricket too?" 

"No, I belong to the fields, and I sing all 



98 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

day. Sometimes I go into the house when 
Winter comes and sing by the fire at night, 
but my real home is in the earth. I dig a 
hole in a sunny spot and Mrs. Cricket lays 
her eggs at the bottom, and fastens them to 
the ground with a kind of glue. Sometimes 
there are three hundred of them, and you 
can imagine what a lively family they are 
when they hatch." 

"I should like to see them," said Ruth, 
for it was quite impossible for her to imagine 
so many baby crickets together. 

"Well, it is a sight, I assure you," answered 
the little cricket. "Did you ever come 
across my cousin the mole cricket? She is 
very large and quite clever. She makes a 
wonderful home with many halls around her 
nest. She is always on guard too so that no 
one may touch her precious eggs. Then I 
have another cousin, who doesn't dress in 
brown like me, but is all white. He lives on 
trees and shrubs and doesn't eat leaves and 
grass as we do. He prefers aphides. You can 



RUTH GOES TO A CONCERT 99 

hear him making music on Summer evenings. 
We crickets seldom fly. We " 

The sentence was not finished, for just then 
a long droning note grew on the air, increasing 
in volume, until it rose above the meadow 
chorus. 

"Oh!" cried Ruth, spying a creature with 
great bulging eyes and beautiful, transparent 
wings, glittering with rainbow tints, "There's 
a locust ! Isn't he beautiful, Belinda? Maybe 
he will tell us some things. Oh, Belinda, 
aren't we in luck?" 





CHAPTER VII 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS AND CONDITIONS 



The shrill cicadas, people of the pine, 

Make their summer lives one ceaseless song. 



A LOCUST, indeed," said the new- 
comer, and Ruth could see plainly 
that he was not pleased. "It does 
seem to me you should know better than that. 
Can't you see I have a sucking beak and not 
a biting one, like the grasshopper tribe? 
Besides, my music isn't made like theirs. 
No faint, fiddly squeak for me, but a fine 
sound of drums." 

"I think I'll move on," said Mr. Grass- 
hopper, and Ruth could see that he was quite 

100 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 101 

angry. She turned to look at the cricket, 
but he was far across the field, fiddling to 
his mate. 

"I wish you wouldn't go," she said to the 
grasshopper. "You have been so nice to 
me and I have learned ever so much from 

you." 

"Oh, I dare say," was the answer. "More 
than you will learn from some people I could 
mention, but I really must leave you. My 
mate wants me." And a flying leap carried 
him quite away. 

"There, we are rid of the old grandfather," 
said the cicada, ''and now what can I do for 

you?" 

"Tell me your real name if it is not locust," 
answered Ruth. 

"It certainly is not locust. I've been 
called a harvest fly, though I am not a fly 
either. I'm a cicada, and nothing else, and 
I belong to the order of bugs." 

"And what kind of tera is it?" 

"Tera?" repeated the cicada, looking at 



102 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

her with his big eyes. "Oh, yes, yes, I 
understand. You mean our scientific name. 
It is Hemiptera, meaning half -wings. I know 
we have some objectionable members, but I 
don't have to associate with them, and I 
rarely mention their names. I have a cousin 
who lives in the ground seventeen years. 
Think of it! Of course he is only a grub 
and doesn't care for air and sun. I lived 
there two years myself, but I was a grub 
also then. You see my mother put her eggs 
in the twig of a tree, and when I came out 
of one of them I wanted to get to the ground 
more than I wanted anything else, so I just 
crawled out to the end of the branch and 
let go. Down I went, over and over, to the 
ground, where I soon bored my way in, and 
began to suck the juices of the roots about 
me. I liked it then, but I couldn't stand it 
now. Of course the moles were trying. 
They were always hungry and we were one 
of the things they liked for dinner. One 
day something seemed to call me to the world 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 103 

of light, and I came out a changed being — 
in fact, the beautiful creature you see before 
you now. Perhaps you do not know how 
much attention we have attracted? In all 
ages poets have sung of us, even from the 
days of Homer. Maybe you will not believe 
me, but the early Greeks thought us almost 
divine, and when Homer wished to say the 
nicest things about his orators he compared 
them to cicadas. A while ago I told you 
we were sometimes called harvest flies. We 
have also been given the name Lyremen. 
Shall I tell you why?" 

"A story!" cried Ruth, clapping her hands. 
"Oh, yes, please tell it!" 

"Very well. Once upon a time, ages ago, 
a young Grecian player was competing for 
a prize, and so sweet was the music he drew 
from his lyre that all who heard it felt he 
must surely win. But alas! when he was 
nearly finished one of his strings snapped, 
and, with a sad heart, he thought that all his 
hope was gone. Not so, however, for a cicada, 



104 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

drawn from the woods by the sweet sounds, 
had perched upon the lyre and when the musi- 
cian's trembling fingers touched the broken 
string it gave forth a note that was clear and 
true. Thus again and again the cicada 
answered in tones that were sweet and full. 
When the happy player realized that the 
cicada had won the prize for him, he was so 
filled with gratitude that he caused a full 
figure of himself to be carved in marble, and 
in his hand a lyre with a cicada perched 
upon it. Now wouldn't you be proud if 
your family had such a nice story about 
them?" 

"I'm sure it is very nice," agreed Ruth. 

"Yet I'm not one to brag," added the 
cicada, "and I am never ashamed to say I'm 
a bug. Now if you will come with me to 
the pond I will show you some of my cousins. 
They are very interesting." 

And with a whiz the gauzy- winged fellow 
darted up into the sunshine, and Ruth, 
following him across the meadow, could only 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 105 

hug Belinda in a rapture of expectation, and 
whisper in a low voice : 

"Aren't we in luck, Belinda — just the 
best kind of luck?" 

They had gone only a little way, however, 
when a mole pushed his strong little snout 
above the ground. 

"Gracious! what a noise," he said. "If 
I had had a chance when you were a baby 
you wouldn't be here now to disturb quiet- 
minded people." 

Ruth jumped. She thought the mole 
meant he would have eaten her. Then she 
laughed. "Of course it was the cicada he 
was talking to," but the cicada didn't mind. 

"I know that very well," he answered, 
cheerfully, "but you didn't get me. That 
makes all the difference, and now you can't." 

"Well, nobody wants you now. You would 
be mighty dry eating, but when you were 
a grub, oh, my! so fat and juicy, like all 
the other grubs and slugs and worms. I eat 
you all. Yet what thanks do I get from man 



106 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

for doing away with so many of his enemies? 
Complaints, nothing but complaints, and 
just because I raise a few ridges in the 
ground. I can't help that. When I move 
underground I push the earth before me, and, 
as it has to go somewhere, it rises up." 

"What do you push with?" asked Ruth, 
sitting down in front of the mole. 

"W 7 ith my snout and forepaws," he an- 
swered, "what else? The muscle which 
moves my head is very powerful, and you 
can see how broad my forepaws are, and, 
also, that they turn outward. They help 
to throw back the earth as I make my way 
forward. I have ever so many sharp little 
teeth, too, and my fur lies smooth in all 
directions, so it never rumples and " 

"Do come on," interrupted the cicada; 
"that fellow isn't interesting." 

"That's so," said a thin little voice, as 
an earthworm cautiously lifted his head 
from the ground. "Has he gone?" he asked 
anxiously. "He'd eat me sooner than wink 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 107 

if he saw me. It is warm and damp this 
morning, that is why I am so near the sur- 
face. I don't like dry or cold weather. My 
house ■" 

"Have you a house?" 

Ruth had turned upon him in a second, 
full of questions as usual. 

"Certainly I have a house. It is a row of 
halls, lined with glue from my own body. 
The walls are so firm they can't fall in. 
Underground is really a delightful place to 
live, snug and soft, cool in Summer, warm in 
Winter. Lots to see, too. All the creeping, 
twining roots and stems reaching out for 
food, storing it away, or sending it up as sap 
to the leaves. The seeds waking up in the 
Spring, and hosts of meadow and wood people 
wrapped in egg and cocoon, who spend their 
baby days there. Quite a little world, I 
assure you. Of course I can't see any of 
these things. I have no eyes." 

"Oh!" said Ruth, "how dreadful!" 

"No, it is just as well. If I had eyes I 



108 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

might get earth in them. I go through 
the ground so much." 

"But isn't that awful hard work?" asked 
Ruth, shutting her eyes to realize what hav- 
ing no eyes might mean. 

"It isn't hard when one has a nice set of 
bristles, as I have to help me along." The 
earthworm was one who saw the best side of 
everything. "I am made up of more than a 
hundred rings," he went on, "and on each are 
small stiff hair-like bristles so, though I have 
neither eyes, ears, hands, nor feet, I am quite 
independent. I can move very fast, and the 
slime that covers me keeps the earth from 
sticking to me. Do you know I am the 
only jointed animal that has red blood? 
It is so. I do no harm, either, to growing 
things, and I help to build the world. My 
tunnels let air into the ground and help to 
keep it loose. I also bring up rich soil from 
below, and lay it on the surface. I also — " 

"Well, that's enough," interrupted the 
cicada, moving his wings impatiently. "I 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 109 

thought you wanted to see my relations?" 
he added to Ruth. 

"So I do," answered Ruth. "Where are 
they?" 

"There are a number of them right in this 
meadow, though you would never think it, 
to look at them. They are not at all like 
me. See that white froth clinging to those 
grass stems? A cousin made that. Of the 
sap of the plant too. If you look, you will 
find her in the midst of it. She is green and 
speckled and very small. Then there are 
the tree hoppers, as funny in shape as brown- 
ies, and the leaf hoppers. They are all my 
cousins. The aphides too. Of course you 
know the aphides?" 

"I believe they were the things Mrs. 
Lacewing told me I should learn about later," 
said Ruth, with sudden remembrance. 

"Very likely. Mrs. Lacewing's children 
should know about them. The aphides are 
very bad, though they are so very tiny. 
But what they lack in size they make up in 



110 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

numbers. Really there are millions of them. 
They are not travellers, either, but stay 
just where they are hatched, and suck, 
suck, suck. In that way they kill many 
plants, for it is the sap of the plant, its life 
juice, which serves them for food. They 
eat so much of this that their bodies can't 
hold it all, and what they don't need is given 
off as honey dew. The ants like this honey 
so well that to get it they take good care of 
the aphides. But there are some aphides 
which do not give off honey dew. Do you see 
this white stuff on the alder bushes?" 

"Yes. I've often seen it before, too. It 
looks like soft white fringe." 

"Well, it isn't. It is a lot of aphides, each 
with a tuft of wool on its body, and a beak 
fast stuck in the alder stem." 

They had now reached the pond, which 
lay smiling in the sunshine. 

"It would be so pretty," said Ruth, throw- 
ing herself down on the grass, "if it wasn't for 
the horrid, green, oozy stuff all over it." 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 111 

"Horrid, green, oozy stuff?" repeated the 
cicada. "Child, you don't know what you 
are talking about. That green stuff is made 
up of tiny green plants more than you could 
count. Each has a rootlet hanging down like 
a silver thread and leaves almost too small to 
be called so. They are green though and 
they do the mighty work of all green leaves, 
for, besides shading the pond world from the 
hot rays of the sun, they make for the many 
inhabitants the life-giving oxygen without 
which they would die. And I want to tell 
you something more : In that duckweed — 
for what you call green, oozy stuff is duck- 
weed — there are millions of tiny living 
things too small to be seen by the eye except 
with the aid of a microscope." 

Ruth looked quite as astonished as the 
cicada meant she should be. 

"You have a great deal to learn, I assure 
you. Maybe you haven't thought of the 
pond as a world, but just see what a busy 
place it is." 



112 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

Ruth looked and agreed with the cicada. 
Dragon flies were darting here, there, and 
everywhere; frogs, with their heads out of 
the water, seemed to be admiring the scenery 
when they were not swallowing air or what- 
ever else came in their way; glancing minnows 
and bright-eyed tadpoles played amongst 
the swaying water weeds; even the wrigglers 
were there, standing on their heads in their 
own funny way, and the water striders, skat- 
ing after their own queer fashion. Yes, it 
was a busy place. 

A party of whirligig beetles came dashing 
by, circling, curving, spinning, and making 
such a disturbance that a backswimmer lost 
his patience and told them to be quiet. 

They didn't like that at all, so they threw 
about him a Very disagreeable milky fluid 
which made the backswimmer dive for the 
bottom in a hurry. 

"That settled him," said one of the whirl- 
igigs. "Hello ! friend Skipper Jack," he called 
to a water strider, "what are you doing?" 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 113 

"Skating, of course," answered the water 
strider. "There, they are gone," he added, 
to the cicada, "and I am glad of it. They 



are nuisances. " 



"You are right," agreed the cicada. 

"I am glad they don't belong to our order. " 

" Don't they? " asked Ruth. "I think they 
are awfully funny. " 

"Funny or not, they are beetles," answered 
the water strider. "You had better use 
your eyes. Do you know why I can skate 
and not get my feet wet? No, of course you 
don't, and yet it is as plain as the nose on 
your face. I have a coat of hairs on the 
under side of my body. That's why. I 
spend my time on the surface of the water, 
for my dinner is right here. Plenty of gnats, 
insect eggs, and other eatables. Then if 
I wish I can spring up in the air for the 
things that fly. My Winters I spend under 
water, but for other seasons give me the sur- 
face. " 

"And I like the bottom best," said a water 



114 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

boatman, showing himself quite suddenly, 
his air-covered body glittering like silver 
armour. 

"Another cousin," whispered the cicada 
in Ruth's ear. "He is called the water 
cicada, as well as water boatman." 

"He looks more like a boat than he does 
like you," said Ruth. 

"My body is boat-shaped," spoke up the 
boatman; "and see my hind legs; they really 
are like oars, aren't they?" 

"I am wondering what brought you to 
the surface," said the cicada. 

"Why, I let go my hold on that old water 
weed, and you know the air that covers my 
body makes it lighter than the water and 
unless I cling to something I naturally rise. 
It is inconvenient, for I do not need to come 
to the surface for air. I can breathe the 
same air over and over, because I know how 
to purify it." 

"How do you do it?" asked Ruth. Surely 
these insects were wonderfully clever. 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 115 

"Oh, I simply hang to something with my 
front legs, while I move my back ones just 
as I do in swimming, and that makes a cur- 
rent of water pass over my coat of air and 
purify it. That fellow swimming on his 
back over there is obliged to come to the 
surface every little while. He carries air 
down in a bubble under his wings." 

"Do you mean me?" asked the back- 
swimmer, making a sudden leap in the air, 
and flying away. 

"Gracious!" cried Ruth in surprise. "I 
didn't know he could fly." 

"There's a good deal you don't know," 
replied the water boatman, a remark Ruth 
had heard before. "I can fly too," and he 
also spread his wings and was off. 

"Well," said the cicada, "I guess we might 
as well be off too. There seems to be no 
one in sight to interest us." 

"What about cousin Belostoma?" asked 
a sort of muffled voice, as a great pair of bulg- 
ing eyes showed themselves above the water, 



116 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

and out came the giant water bug as big as 
life. 

"I've just had my dinner," he said. "It 
really is funny to see how everything hides 
when Belostoma shows his face. My wife 
is the only one who doesn't seem to be afraid 
of me and she — well, she's a terror and no 
mistake." 

"Why, what's the matter now?" asked the 
cicada. 

"And what has happened to your back?" 
added Ruth, with eager curiosity. 

"My wife's happened, that's what," an- 
swered Belostoma in a doleful tone. "She 
laid her eggs a while ago and glued every 
blessed one to my back. It is nothing to 
laugh at either. There's no joke in being a 
walking incubator. Well, I must be going 
now. It is dinner time." 

"I thought you just had your dinner," 
said Ruth. 

"Yes, but it's time again. It is always 
time. How silly you are." 



RUTH MEETS MANY SORTS 117 

"I must go too," said the cicada, "but it 
isn't dinner that calls me. I feel sure my 
mate is longing for some music and I'm 
off to give her a bit. See you later." 

And, spreading his wings, the cicada flew 
away, beating his drums as he went. 





CHAPTER VIII 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 



Their wings with azure green 
And purple glossed. 

— Anna L. Barbauld. 

SOMETHING exciting was going on. 
Ruth could not tell just what it was 
at first. She could only watch and 
wonder. Then her eyes grew large and bright . 
Surely some fairy's wand had touched the 
old orchard, for suddenly it seemed alive 
with beetles — big beetles and little beetles ; 
beetles in sober colourings, and beetles gleam- 
ing with all the tints of the rainbow. Ruth 
had never dreamed that there could be so 
many of them or that they were so beautiful. 

118 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 119 

The gorgeously coloured, graceful tigers 
attracted her first, though she didn't know 
their name. 

"Oh," she cried, "how lovely!" 

"And how strange," added a voice just 
above her head, "how very strange, their 
children should be so homely." 

"What's that?" asked one of the tigers, 
a metallic green fellow, with purple lights, 
and two pale yellow dots on the edge of each 
wing cover. "Our children not so beautiful 
as we are, did you say? Of course, they are 
not; a fat grub couldn't be, you know. But 
let me tell you, there are few things as smart 
as a tiger beetle baby. I say," he added, 
looking full at Ruth, "have you ever seen 
the hole he digs? It is often a foot deep, 
while he is less than an inch long. He has 
only his jaws and fore legs to work with 
too. Yet he piles the earth on his flat head 
as if it were the easiest thing in the world, 
and then, climbing to the top, he throws it 
off, and is ready for another load." 



120 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"I suppose he digs a hole to catch things," 
said Ruth, "like the ant lion, and does he 
stay at the bottom and " 

"No, he doesn't stay at the bottom. He 
watches near the top of his hole for his dinner, 
hanging on by a pair of hooks which grow 
out of a hump on his back. He always goes 
to the bottom to eat his dinner, though; 
he seems to like privacy. Yes, we are a 
fierce family from the beginning, for we 
grown tigers can catch our prey either run- 
ning or flying, and we usually manage to get 
it, too. But, then, farmers need not complain 
of us, for we never eat plants, and that is 
more than can be said of many here." 

"Such taste," said a cloaked, knotty horn, 
holding herself in a position that showed 
off her changeable blue and green dress, and 
her short yellow cape. 

But the tiger did not answer. He was off 
after his dinner. Several tree borers, how- 
ever, nodded their heads in agreement. 

"I believe in a vegetable diet myself," 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 121 

said Mrs. Sawyer, who wore as usual her 
dress of brown and gray. "It is just such 
people as the tigers who make things like 
that necessary in a respectable meeting," 
and as she spoke she waved her very long 
antennae toward a big sign which read: 

"the audience are requested not to eat each other during 
the meeting" 

"I am glad to say I am not one of that 
kind. I wonder if any one of you know why 
the members of our family are called sawyers. 
Perhaps I had better tell you: It is because 
our children saw into the trunks of ever- 
green trees, and sometimes they make holes 
large enough to kill the trees. Smart, isn't 
it, for a baby?" 

"But it doesn't seem to be very nice," 
began Ruth. Then she stopped, for Mrs. 
Sawyer was looking at her and the borers 
were nodding their heads again. 

"Our children do not saw," said the borers, 
"but they do bore, and it is pretty much the 
same thing for the tree." 



122 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"My friends," broke in a very solemn voice. 

Every beetle stopped talking, and Ruth 
jumped to her feet, then flopped down on 
the grass again, waiting for what was coming. 

The speaker, a large, clean-looking beetle, 
had just flown to a twig in the very middle 
of the meeting. He was black in colour, well 
sprinkled above and below with pale straw 
yellow in dots and points, but the queer 
thing about him was the two oval velvety 
black spots, each with a narrow line of straw 
colour around it, on his thorax. They were 
like great eyes, and made him look very wise. 

"He is the eyed-elater," whispered Mrs. 
Sawyer to Ruth. "There he is speaking 
again." 

"My friends," the big beetle was saying 
in tones as solemn, as before, "the impor- 
tant thing in any meeting is to keep to the 



main issue." 



"The main issue?" said the goldsmith 
beetle, a beautiful little creature with wing 
covers of golden yellow, and a body of metal- 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 123 

lie green covered with white, woolly fuzz. 
"What is the main issue?" 

" Dinner," replied the tiger beetle, return- 
ing to his old place. "If it isn't breakfast 
or supper." 

"No, my friend," said the eyed-elater, 
with a grave glance, "the main issue is " 

Then he stopped and fixed his two real 
eyes and the two spots which looked like 
eyes on some small beetles which were leaping 
in the air, turning somersaults, and making 
quite a noise. 

"Will you be still?" he said in his sternest 
voice. 

"How foolish," said Mrs. Sawyer, "to 
expect click beetles to be still!" 

But Ruth was all curiosity. 

"I've seen you before," she said, going 
closer and touching one of the funny little 
fellows. 

Suddenly it curled up its legs, dropped 
as if shot, then lay like one dead. 

"Here, here!" called the elater. "No 



124 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

more of that! We know all about your 
tricks!" 

"All right," said the would-be dead one, 
and he gave a click, popped into the air 
several inches, and came down on his back. 

"That wo>n't do at all," he said, and, click- 
ing and popping once more, he came down 
on his feet. 

"There," he added, "you need to have 
patience with click beetles. You ought to 
know that, friend elater, for you are one of 



us." 



"Well, I'm bigger, and not so foolish, and 
my children are not so harmful as yours. 
Think of being a parent of those dreadful 
wire worms! That is what you click beetles 
are, and you know the farmer hasn't a 
worse enemy. Now we must get back to 
the main issue." 

66 Back?" said Mrs. Sawyer. "Were we 
ever there to begin with? You can't scare 
me," she added, "no matter how hard you 
stare. You haven't any more eyes than the 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 125 

rest of us. Those two spots are not real 
eyes, and you know it." 

"The main issue," repeated the elater in 
a very loud voice, " is, What makes us beetles ?' ' 

"That's something I'd like to know," 
said a handsome little beetle in a striped coat. 
"I'm a beetle, if there ever was one, yet I 
have a world-wide reputation as a bug." 

"Pray don't get excited, Mrs. Potato Bug. 
It isn't your time to talk yet. We are on the 
main issue, and I will answer my own ques- 
tion." 

Ruth was glad some one would answer it, 
for at this rate it seemed they would never 
get anywhere. 

"We are beetles for several reasons," went 
on the elater. "In the first place, we belong 
to the order Coleoptera." 

Another tera, thought Ruth. 

"That name is taken from a language called 
Greek, and means sheath wing. It is given to 
us because we have handsome outside wings 
which we use to cover our real flying wings. 



126 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

All beetles have them, though those of our 
cousin, Mr. Rove Beetle, are quite short." 

"That's a fact," said a rove beetle, "and 
no one need think we have outgrown our 
coats. It is simply a fashion in our family 
to wear our sheath wings short. We can al- 
ways fold our true wings under them, and 
I'd like to see the fellow who says we can't." 

"Well, you needn't get so mad about it," 
answered the elater in mild tones. 

"And don't curl your body up as if you 
were a wasp," added Mrs. Sawyer. "Every- 
body knows you can't sting." 

"I don't care," said the rove beetle. "I 
hate to be misunderstood. We are useful 
too. I heard a man call us scavengers. 
I don't know what it means, but something 
good, I am sure, from the way he said it. 
I must be going soon. It is so dry here. 
You know my home is in damp places under 
stones or leaves." 

"You may go when you wish," answered 
the elater. "We are still on the main issue. 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 127 

As I said before, we are beetles, and there 
is no reason to take us for bugs. Calm 
yourself, Mrs. Potato Bug. We have no 
sucking beak as the bugs have, but we have 
two sets of horny jaws, which move sideways, 
and not up and down. These are to bite 
roots, stems, and leaves of plants, so most 
of our order live on vegetable food and are 
enemies to the farmer, but some of us are his 
friends, for we eat the insects that injure 
his crops. Our children are called grubs. 
Some of them make a sort of glue, with which 
they stick together earth or bits of wood for 
a cocoon; others make tunnels in tree trunks 
or wood and transform in them. We may 
well be proud, for we belong to a large and 
beautiful order, and we are found in all 
parts of the world. We are divided into two 
sub -orders — true beetles and snout beetles. 
I hope our cousins, the snout beetles, will 
not be offended. They are real in a way." 
"The farmer and fruit grower think so 
anyway," said a little weevil. " We have been 



128 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

called bugs just because we have a snout, 
but any one can see at a glance that it isn't 
a bug's snout. It is not a tube at all, but 
has tiny jaws at the tip." 

"I don't believe I could see all that," said 
Ruth rather timidly, for these clever little 
people had a way of making her feel she knew 
very little. 

"Maybe you can't," was the short answer, 
"and I dare say you can't tell how we use 
our snouts either. We punch holes with 
them in plums, peaches, cherries, and other 
fruits, not to mention nuts and the bark of 
trees. I am a peach cuculio, but that is not 
important. We all work in the same way 
— that is, drop an egg in the hole made by 
our snout, then use the snout again to push 
the egg down. Mrs. Plum Weevil is busy 
now in the plum orchard back of us; so of 
course she couldn't come to this meeting. 
'Duty before pleasure,' she said. She will lay 
eggs in quite a number of plums, and the plums 
will drop from the trees before they are ripe.'* 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 129 

"And there'll be a lump of gum on them!" 
cried Ruth, clapping her hands. 

The weevil looked at her with approval. 
"You do notice some things," she said. 

"The gum oozes out of the hole made by 
our snouts. Of course our egg hatches inside 
the fruit, and the baby has its dinner all 
around it. As it hasn't a leg to walk on " 

"Dear! dear!" sighed the elater. "You 
seem to forget that we are trying to keep 
to the main issue. As I said before " 

u You are always saying what you said 
before," snapped Mrs. Sawyer. 

"Now, they are beginning again," thought 
Ruth, but the elater paid no attention to Mrs. 
Sawyer. 

"As I said before," he repeated, "we have 
reason to be proud, for though we build no 
cities, like ants, wasps, and bees, and make 
no honey or wax, or have, in fact, any special 
trades, yet we are interesting and beautiful. 
The ancient Egyptians thought some of us 
sacred and worshipped us." 



130 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"There!" cried Mrs. Tumble Bug, liter- 
ally tumbling into their midst. "I couldn't 
come at a better time." 

Ruth gave a little scream of delight when 
she saw her, and Mrs. Tumble Bug nodded 
with the air of an old friend. 

As usual, her black dress looked neat and 
clean, though she and her husband had rolled 
and tumbled all over the road in their effort 
to get their ball to what they considered the 
best place for it. They had succeeded, and 
Mrs, Tumble Bug's shovel-shaped face wore 
a broad smile in consequence. 

"I knew about this meeting," she said, 
"but my husband and I agreed that duty 
should come before pleasure." 

"She heard me say that," whispered 
the little peach weevil to her nearest neigh- 
bour. 

"I didn't," answered Mrs. Tumble Bug. 
"I have just come. We only found a safe 
place for our ball a little while ago." 

"That ball!" said Mrs. Sawyer in dis- 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 131 

gusted tones. "I should think you would 
be tired of it." 

"Tired of our ball?" repeated Mrs. Tumble 
Bug. "Why, our ball is the most important 
thing in the world. This was a big one, too. 
We made it in Farmer Brown's barnyard, 
and then I laid my eggs in it, and we rolled 
it all the way here. Of course it grew on the 
road, and I couldn't have moved it alone, 
but my mate helped me. He always helps. 
Indeed it seems to me tumble bugs are the 
only husbands in the insect world who care 
about their children's future." 

"Now I know," said Ruth, who had been 
thinking very hard. "You think so much 
of your balls because they hold your eggs. 
I've often wondered about them." 

"Of course that is the reason," answered 
Mrs. Tumble Bug; "and when our eggs 
hatch the babies will have a feast all around 
them." 

"Ugh!" said Ruth, and some flower beetles 
shook their little heads, and added: 



132 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"It would be better to starve than eat the 
stuff in that ball." 

"Tastes differ," said Mrs. Tumble Bug, 
amiably; "but, speaking of sacred beetles, 
it was our family the Egyptians worshipped. 
They could not understand why we were 
always rolling our ball, so they looked upon 
us as divine in some way, and made pictures 
of us in stone and precious gems. They 
can be seen to-day, I am told, but I do not 
care about that. I must make another 
ball," and, nodding to her mate, they left 
the meeting together. 

"Now we'll adjourn for dinner," announced 
the elater, much to the disgust of Mrs. Potato 
Bug, who was just getting ready to speak. 

"Dinner is well enough," she said, "but 
how is one to enjoy it when one must stop 
in a little while?" 

"You needn't stop," answered the elater. 
"Stay with your dinner. We are not so 
anxious to hear you talk." 

"But I mean to talk, and I will," and Mrs. 



MRS. TUMBLE BUG AND OTHERS 133 

Potato Bug was off to the potato field, in- 
tending, as she said, to take a light lunch, 
and be back when the meeting opened. 

But potato bugs propose, and farmers dis- 
pose, and 





CHAPTER IX 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 



It's a wonder, it's a wonder 
That they live to tell the tale. 



Anon. 



MRS. POTATO BUG did not return. 
A sister bug rose to speak when the 
meeting opened after dinner. There 
had been a sad tragedy in the potato field, 
she told them, and even at that very minute 
the farmer and the farmer's men, armed with 
barrels of "pizens," were waging a warfare 
in which millions of potato bugs were going 
down to their death. "Alas! my friends," 
she finished with a sigh that seemed to come 

134 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 135 

from the very tips of her six feet, "no words 
can paint the dreadful scene. She who was 
here but a short while ago, so chipper and so 
gay, even she was giving her last gasp as I 
fled from the field of carnage." 

The story moved the audience deeply, 
and all agreed that something should be done 
to suppress the farmers. It was even sug- 
gested to appoint a committee to consider 
ways and means, but at this point a very 
young potato bug asked the question: 

"If there were no farmers, who would 
plant potatoes for us?" 

"No one," answered Mrs. Sawyer, who was 
there just as self-important as ever. "Then 
maybe there would be no potato bugs, and 
I for one wouldn't be sorry. " 

"Indeed," said the potato bug who had 
told the tale of battle, "I'd have you know 
we are Colorado beetles, if you please, and 
our family has a worldwide fame. We are 
true Americans, too, and not emigrants from 
Europe, like many other insects, and that 



136 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

reminds me: The other day when I was hav- 
ing a nice chew on some very juicy potato 
leaves, I heard somebody say to somebody 
else: 'Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of 
the West.' He said a lot more, but I heard 
that plainly, and I wondered if he meant our 
family, and didn't know our name, because, 
you know, we came out of the West." 

" I am sure he didn't mean you," said Ruth, 
who was in her old place right in the middle 
of the meeting. "That line is from a lovely 
piece of poetry about " 

"No one asked your opinion," answered 
the potato bug angrily. "It is bad enough 
to have outsiders force themselves in, with- 
out being obliged to hear their silly remarks." 

Ruth's face grew red, and she was about to 
reply, when Mrs. Sawyer whispered in her ear. 

"Don't mind her, she is only a potato bug." 

It was well that Mrs. Potato Bug did not 
hear this. "Before 1859," she was saying, 
"our home was in the shade of the Rocky 
Mountains. There we fed on sandspur, a 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 137 

plant belonging to the potato family, and the 
East knew us not. It was only after the 
white settlers came West and planted potatoes 
that we found out how much nicer a potato 
leaf is than a sandspur leaf, so of course we 
ate potato leaves. We came East, travelling 
from patch to patch, and by 1874 we had 
conquered the country to the Atlantic Ocean. 
That shows what a smart family we must 
be, and I will tell you how we do. We lay 
our eggs on the potato leaves, and our children 
find their dinner all ready, and, as they hatch 
with splendid appetites, they get right to 
work. Those that hatch in the Fall sleep 
all Winter in the ground and come out as 
beetles in the Spring, ju&t in time to lay more 
eggs. So we keep things going, especially 
the potatoes." And Mrs. Potato Bug retired 
with the air of one quite proud of herself. 

Her place was taken by a little ladybug, 
looking quite pretty in her reddish-brown 
dress, daintily spotted with black. 

"I have several cousins," she said, "of 



138 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

different colours, but all spotted and all friends 
to farmers and fruit growers, for we eat the 
aphides and scale bugs which do so much 
harm to plants. We are called bugs, but of 
course we are beetles. I could tell you a 
story " 

" Never mind the story," said a great brown 
blundering fellow, much to Ruth's regret, 
for she wanted to hear the story. 

"Excuse my awkwardness," said the new- 
comer. "It bothers me to fly by day. I 
like to go around the evening lamps. I can 
buzz loud enough for a fellow three inches 
long, though I am really not one. I am 
called a June bug, and I'm really a May 
beetle. What do you think of that? I have 
been told that the farmers do not like us, 
nor our children either. They are such 
nice, fat, white grubs too. They do love 
to suck the roots of plants though, and, 
as we grown fellows are just as fond of the 
leaves, between us we make the poor old 
plants pretty sick." 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 139 

"I wish something had made you sick 
before you came here to disturb quiet folks 
with your buzzing," said a large blue beetle, 
dropping some oil from her joints in her 
excitement. 

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she added when 
Ruth spoke to her about it. "It only proves 
that I have a right to be called an oil beetle. 
In these days it is so important to know who 
is who." 

Ruth was watching the oozing oil curiously. 

"Does it hurt?" she asked. 

"Oh, no," was the answer. "It is per- 
fectly natural. I can't move about fast, I 
am too fat, and I haven't any wings to speak 
of. So when anything disturbs me I can 
only play 'possum and drop oil. I wasn't 
always like this, though," she went on, 
with a heavy sigh. "Would you believe it? 
I was born under a stone in a field of butter- 
cups. I was tiny, but my body had thirteen 
joints and three pairs of as active little legs 
as you ever saw. Each had a claw on it too. 



140 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

What do you think of that? I used my legs 
right away to climb a near-by flower stalk. 
Something inside of me seemed to tell me 
just what to do, and when a bee came flying 
by, though she looked like a giant, I wasn't 
a bit afraid, but I popped on her back, and 
clutched so tight with my six little claw-like 
legs she couldn't have gotten me off if she 
had tried. But maybe she didn't know I 
was there. Anyway, I had some lovely 
free rides, for she flew from flower to flower, 
and then she went home." 

"Oh," interrupted Ruth, "did you go right 
into the hive? " 

"Yes, but I didn't notice much about it 
at first. I felt very tired, and I can only 
remember dropping from her back and going 
to sleep. When I awoke a funny thing had 
happened." 

"What?" asked Ruth, full of curiosity. 

"My legs were gone, and only a half dozen 
short feelers were left me instead. But I 
didn't mind. I was in one of the tiny rooms 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 141 

of the hive, and there was a nice fat bee 
baby for me to eat. I didn't lose any time 
either; I was hungry. Besides the baby 
there were bee bread and honey. Who could 
ask for more? Indeed, I ate so much I went 
to sleep again, and, would you believe me? 
in that sleep I lost even my short feelers, 
and, worst of all, my mouth." 

"Gracious!" said Ruth. 

"I suppose after that I slept again, for 
what's the use of staying awake if you can't 
eat? But that nap finished me. I waked 
up looking as I do now. It was a sad change. 
Maybe that is why I feel so blue and am 
called the indigo beetle." 

"I don't see why you changed so many 
times," said Ruth. 

"Neither do I. No other insect does, but 
I suppose it has to be. I shall soon lay my 
eggs, and that no doubt will be the end of me. 
We seem to begin and end with eggs." 

She sighed heavily, and went on: "I 
have a cousin who is used to make blisters 



142 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

on people. Think of it! She is called Span- 
ish fly, and she is no more a fly than you are." 

"Does she bite them to make the blister?" 
asked Ruth. 

"Dear me, no! The poor thing is dried 
and made into powder and then spread with 
ointment on a cloth. That makes the blister. 
I suppose it takes ever so many of my poor 
cousins for just one blister. I tell you, life 
is sad." 

"Do stop that sort of thing, I can't stand 
it!" said a plain, slender little beetle, with 
no pretensions to beauty of any sort. "I 
came here as a special favour, and then I am 
forced to hear such talk as that. I am never 
at my best in the day, and you should know 
it. Some of you complain of being called 
bug, and others object to the name fly. 
Now I am as much a beetle as any of you, and 
I've been called both bug and fly." 

"A lightning bug?" cried Ruth. 

"Yes, and also firefly, and if it was dark 
I'd prove it. Of course my light can't be 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 143 

seen in the day, and generally I'm not to be 
seen either, for we fireflies hide away on the 
leaves of plants until it begins to grow dark. 
Then we come out, and have gay times flying 
over the meadows. Some of our family 
who live in warm climates are so large and 
bright they are used to read by. Not only 
that, ladies wear them as they would jewels, 
and in Japan " 

But the firefly could say no more, for just 
at this moment some whirligig beetles came 
flying in and every one turned to look at 
them. 

"I should like to know what those fellows 
are doing here," said a bumble-bee beetle, 
making such a loud humming that Mrs. 
Sawyer declared she thought a real bumble- 
bee was in their midst. "People who live 
in the water shouldn't belong to our family, 
anyhow. I can't imagine any one liking the 
water." 

"That's because you are not a water 
beetle," answered one of the whirligigs. 



144 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"Why, the water is the most sociable place 
in the world. Something lively happening 
all the time. Constant changes too. Those 
who are with us one moment are gone the 
next, but that is life on land as well as in 
the water for us insects. Dinner is always 
our first thought. Of course we water fellows 
are fitted for our life. We are put together 
more tightly than you land beetles, and we 
are boat-shaped besides. We use our hind 
legs for paddles, and we have wings with 
which we can leave the water if we wish. 
We whirligigs are sociable fellows, always 
a lot of us together, and such fun as we 
have dancing and whirling about in the water! 
We don't often dive unless something is 
after us." 

"You must have very good times,'' said 
Ruth, watching the shiny, bluish black little 
beetles with eager attention. Then she asked 
quite suddenly: 

"Have you four eyes?" 

"No, my dear," answered the first speaker, 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 145 

"we have only two. They look like four, 
because they are divided into upper and 
lower halves. So you see we can look up 
and down at the same time, and, I tell you, 
insects need to step lively to keep out of our 
way. Good times? I should say we did 
have good times. Now to the surface to 
snatch bubbles of air with the tiny hairs on 
the tip of our tails, and then down again for 
a race or a game of tag with our friends. 
No, not all the water beetles are as frisky 
as we are. Some are — now what is that?" 

The whirligig might well ask the question, 
for a sound like a tiny popgun had broken 
in upon his remarks, and the whole audience, 
including Ruth of course, was looking at a 
greenish blue beetle who had just come in, 
leaving a fine trail of smoke behind him. 
It was he who had made the queer noise, 
and he seemed quite disturbed by the sen- 
sation he was creating. 

"Do excuse me," he begged. "I really 
forgot I was among friends." 



146 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"I should think so," answered the elater, 
looking at him sternly. " A beetle who carries 
a gun should be careful about using it." 

"Well, I try to be careful, but accidents 
will happen. 

"Yes, you might really call it a gun," he 
said, in answer to Ruth's question, "and I 
have been named the Bombardier beetle 
because I carry it. When men try to catch 
me, I shoot it off, though I suppose it really 
doesn't hurt them, but it quite blinds my 
insect enemies until I can get away, anyhow. 
Oh, no, I do not use balls or shot. It is a 
fluid, in a sac at the end of my body, and when 
I spurt it out it turns to gas, and looks like 
smoke." 

"Well, we have had talk enough for to- 
day," interrupted the elater, and the Bombar- 
dier beetle said no more. 

"Talk?" repeated Mrs. Sawyer, "I should 
say so. Very tiresome talk too. Now I'm 
going out to lay some eggs. I know a lovely 
tree." 



LITTLE MISCHIEF MAKERS 147 

"That's all she thinks about," said the 
elater. "I'm sure we have had a very in- 
teresting meeting, and I made the main issue 
very plain." 





CHAPTER X 



SOME QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE 



That nothing walks with aimless feet. 

— Tennyson. 

IN A corner of the garden, where the lilacs 
grew tall and broad, Ruth was waiting 
for something to happen. She had a 
feeling, as she told Belinda, that the most 
interesting things were coming, for the wind 
had been kissing her cheeks and ruffling 
her hair, just as though it was saying to her, 
"Watch now. Watch closely and listen." 
Then, too, the garden seemed to be alive. 
Bees droning over the flowers; wasps collect- 
ing their tiny balls of wood pulp or marketing 

148 



SOME QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE 149 

for their families; ants running here, there, 
and everywhere, not to mention many other 
winged creatures, some of whom were made 
after a fashion so queer that Ruth, forgetting 
how rude it is to make personal remarks, 
deliberately asked of one: 

"If you please, what is that long piece 
which seems to be growing from the tip of 
your body? It looks like Mary's stove hook 
when she sticks it in the lid." 

"That," was the rather short answer, "is 
my abdomen, and it isn't growing from the 
tip of my body, but from the top of my tho- 
rax. It seems to me you have never seen an 
ensign fly before." 

"No, I never did. Please, what does 
ensign mean?" 

"The dictionary will tell you that. All 
I know is some man got an idea that we 
carried our abdomens aloft like a flag or 
ensign, and so named us ensign fly. We are 
not flies, to begin with, but we have to keep 
any idiotic name they choose to tack on us. 



150 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

Now take Mrs. Horntail, who wants " 

"Thank you, I can speak for myself," 
interrupted the horntail, sharply. She was 
quite handsome, with her black abdomen 
banded with yellow, her red and black head, 
yellow legs and horn, and dusky wings. 

"I like my name. It means something, 
for I have a horn on my tail, and, what's 
more, I use it. You should see me bore into 
solid green wood. None of your dead wood 
for me. I am not content with one hole 
either. I bore a great many, and in each 
I drop an egg, and when my babies hatch 
they get fat on the sap wood of the tree." 

"There seem to be such a lot of things to 
eat trees," said Ruth. 

"Perhaps there are, but I am interested 
in horntail babies only. They do their share 
of eating too, and when they grow sleepy 
they make cocoons of chips and silk from 
their own bodies, and go to sleep. After 
they wake they are changed into winged 
creatures, who naturally do not care to live 



SOME QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE 151 

in the tree arfy more. So they gnaw their 
way through the bark to the outside world 
and " 

"Not if the woodpeckers and I can help 
it," interrupted an ichneumon fly, keeping 
her antennae in constant motion. She seemed 
to have long streamers floating ^rom the back 
of her, and, altogether, Ruth thought her 
even queerer looking than the ensign fly 

"Those streamers are my ovipositor," she 
explained to Ruth. "The thing I lay eggs 
with, you understand. WJien *I shut them 
together they form a sort of auger, with 
which I bore into a tree, way, way in, where 
the fat horntail babies are chewing the sap 
wood, and so ruining the tree. Into their 
soft bodies I lay my eggs and when my 
children hatch they eat, not the tree, but the 
horntail baby. It is a wonderfully good 
riddance, and so the farmer and fruit grower 
consider us their friends and call us 'trackers,' 
because we find the hiding places of so many 
pests that harm the plants." 



152 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"You can't get my babies," said Mrs. 
Saw Fly. "I haven't a horn, but I have a 
saw, and, though it will not bore into wood, 
it saws fine gashes in green leaves. Of 
course I drop an egg in each gash, and soon 
there's a swelling all around it, and when 
my children hatch they rock in gall nut 
cradles, and the sap which gathers there is 
their food. " 

"Talk about gall cradles," said a gall 
fly, "my sisters and I are the fairies who 
make them to perfection. Each of us has 
a different plant or tree which she prefers, 
and each follows her own fashion in making 
galls, and we puzzle even the wise men. 
Have you ever seen the brown galls that grow 
on oaks?" 

"Why, of course," answered Ruth, glad 
the question was such an easy one. 

"Well, that's something, but I doubt if 
you have noticed the rosy coloured sponge 
that sometimes grows around the stem, or 
the mimic branch of currants drooping from 



SOME QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE 153 

the spot where the tree intended an acorn 
to be, or the tiny red apple-like ball on the 
leaf." 

Ruth shook her head. "They must be 
very pretty, " she said. 

"Pretty? I should say so. They are all 
different kinds of galls too, and we gall flies 
make them. Sometimes we sting the leaf, 
sometimes the twig, and sometimes the stem, 
and always just the kind of cradle we intended 
grows from it, and the egg we laid there 
hatched into a baby grub, ready to eat the 
sap." 

"Then you know about the one on the 
willow tree," put in Ruth. "The one the 
housefly told about. It grows like a pine 
cone, and is made by some one with a dread- 
fully long name. " 

"That is something entirely different," 
answered the gall fly. "We do not pretend 
to make all the galls, you understand. Some 
are made by insects belonging to quite another 
order. The willow tree cone is one. You 



154 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

may always know ours from the fact that we 
make no door for the babies to come out, as 
other insects do. Our babies make their 
own door when they are ready to leave their 
cradle. And now to show how much is in 
some names, I will tell you that those other 
gall insects are called gall gnats and belong 
to the order of flies, while we are called gall 
flies, and belong to the order Hymenoptera. " 

"Oh!" cried Ruth, clapping her hands. 
"Now I know the kind of tera you belong 
to, Hy-men-op-tera, " she repeated slowly. 
"Please tell me just what it means." 

"No, I won't," was the ungracious answer. 
"I hate explanations." 

"I'll tell you," said Mrs. Horntail. "I 
know all about it. " And as Ruth turned to 
her with grateful eyes she began: 

"Hymenoptera means membrane wing, and 
that's the kind we have, though some of 
our order have no wings at all. The others 
have four wings, the front pair being larger, 
with a fold along the hind edge, that catches 



SOME QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE 155 

on hooks on the front edge of the hind wings ; 
so we really seem to have but one pair. Do 
you understand that?" 

"Yes," nodded Ruth. 

"Very well. We are divided into two sub- 
orders: stingers and borers. Our larvae are 
called maggots. They are not like us, being 
white grubs, with round horny heads, pointed 
tails, six legs " 

"Here, here!" said the ichneumon fly, 
"that does well enough for your children, 
but you know perfectly well that the babies 
of the rest of us have no legs. " 

"Yes, I know. Poor things! Legless chil- 
dren! How sad! Mrs. Saw Fly and I are 
the only exceptions. " 

"And your children use their legs to no 
good purpose either, " said the ichneumon fly. 

"My children need no legs. They never 
move from the spot where they are hatched 
until after they transform. Why should 
they? Their dinner is right there." 

"The same with mine," added a little 



156 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

bright-coloured brachnoid. "I choose a nice 
fat caterpillar, or something like that, to 
lay my eggs in, and he always lasts until 
my babies are ready to spin their cocoons, 
which they do on his shell, or dried skin, 
or whatever you choose to call it. I know 
he himself is quite gone. It is a pretty sight 
to see them." 

The brachnoid herself was a pretty little 
thing and as she looked not unlike the ich- 
neumon fly, only smaller, Ruth asked Mrs. 
Horntail if she were not a young ichneumon 

%• 

"Young ichneumon?" repeated Mrs. Horn- 
tail. "Whoever heard of such a thing? 
A young ichneumon is as large as an old one. 
None of us insects grow after we leave our 
cocoons. When we are what you mean by 
jioung — babies, in other words — we are 
different. I thought you had learned that 
before now. Haven't you had larvae and 
pupae explained to you?" 

"Oh, yes," said Ruth, "but I had for- 



SOME QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE 157 

gotten. Of course you are different when 
you are first hatched, and then you get wings, 
while you sleep, but I thought maybe you 
grew even after you had wings. " 

"Some of the grasshopper tribe do that, 
and spiders are hatched little spiders and 
grow bigger as they grow older, but we do 
no such thing. Besides, as you heard a 
while ago, an ichneumon baby is legless, 
absolutely legless, and homely. Well, I think 
the homeliest thing that lives, but then what 
can you expect with such a mother?" 

"I don't think she is so awfully homely," 
said Ruth. "She is odd-looking, and — 
and " 

"Odd-looking?" repeated Mrs. Horntail. 
"You should see her drilling a hole and laying 
her eggs. If she doesn't cut a figure, I don't 
know one. With her abdomen all in a hump, 
her wings sticking straight up, and her an- 
tennae standing out in front, not to mention 
the ridiculous loop she makes with the ovi- 
positor, she certainly is a sight. " 



158 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"But I find the horntail babies," said the 
ichneumon fly, quite undisturbed, "and that 
is the important thing. I wonder if this 
meeting is over? " 

"I hope so," answered Mrs. Horntail. 
"It is not a proper meeting at all. If I 
had the regulating of it, I would make some 
of these creatures behave. See that ant on 
the pebble over there. She is making faces, 
actually making faces. " 

"I am not making faces," answered the 
ant. "I am getting ready to talk, and I 
haven't had a chance. " 

She was little and brown, and scarcely an 
eighth of an inch long, but she looked quite 
important as she prepared to address the 
audience. 




CHAPTER XI 

WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 

A was an ant, who seldom stood still, 

And who made a nice nest in the side of a hill. 

— Edward Lear. 

SH!" said Ruth to the audience in 
general, for she wanted very much 
to hear what the ant had to say. 
The ant looked at her approvingly, and then 
said in a very solemn tone: 

"My friends, there are ants and ants." 
"Who doesn't know that?" snapped Mrs. 
Horntail. 

"Yes, there are ants and ants," repeated 
the speaker, not noticing the interruption. 
"There is the carpenter ant, for one. In 

159 




MY FRIENDS, THERE ARE ANTS AND ANTS 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 161 

the books she is called Componotis Pennsyl- 
vanicus, but never mind the name. It 
doesn't seem to hurt her. She makes her 
nest in the trunks of trees, old buildings, 
logs, and places of that kind. You can see 
her on the leaf by Mrs. Saw Fly. She is 
large and black and " 

"Clean," finished the carpenter ant, speak- 
ing for herself, and, without asking further 
permission, she poised on her hind legs and 
began to ply her tongue, and the fine and 
coarse combs on her fore legs, until she had 
gone over her whole body, smoothing out 
ruffied hairs, and getting rid of every atom 
of soil. Her toilet done, she gave a few lei- 
surely strokes, then drew her fore legs through 
her mouth to clean the combs, and stretched 
herself with an air of satisfaction. 

"I hope I haven't interrupted the pro- 
ceedings," she said, "but if I am not clean I 
am miserable. Now, Miss Lassius Brunens, 
please go on." 

"Miss who?" asked the little brown ant. 



162 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"Oh, I see. You are calling me by the 
name the wise men give me. Well, I can 
stand it. To continue: I have mentioned 
the carpenter ant, and there are also the 
mound builders. Everybody knows their 




THEN THERE ARE ANTS WHO KEEP SLAVES 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 163 

big hills. Then there are ants who keep 
slaves, and live under stones, and there are 
honey ants, who live in the South and use 
the abdomens of their own sisters to store 
honey in, and there are ants who sow seed 
and harvest it, and 
ants who cut pieces 
from green leaves 
and carry them as 
parasols, and soldier 
ants and " 

"Oh, give us a 
rest!" broke in Mrs. 
Horntail. "I am 
tired of ants." 

"Jealous, you 
mean," L said the little 
brown ant, "because 
you are not as wise as we are. Maybe you 
don't know that whole books have been 
written about us and our clever doings. 
And men have spent years and years trying 
to study our ways. Now my family may 




THEN THERE ARE ANTS WHO 
CUT PIECES FROM GREEN LEAVES 
AND CARRY THEM AS PARASOLS ' " 



164 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

not be the most wonderful, but I think 
it is the best known. We are the little 
ants who make the hill with a hole in the 
middle, which you so often see on sandy 
paths, or roadsides, or in dry fields." 

Ruth had edged closer, and was listening 
eagerly. Once more the little ant looked at 
her approvingly, then went on: 

"Some people think our houses are queer, 
because they are dark. Of course we have 
no windows, only a door, and that is a hole 
in the roof. We like it so though, and you 
might be surprised if you could see our many 
wonderful galleries and chambers. We made 
them all too. Dug them out of the earth, 
with our feet, throwing the soil out behind us, 
until the burrow grew too deep. Then we 
had to take it out grain by grain. We made 
our pillars and supports also, using damp 
earth for mortar. We don't mind work, 
but we do mind human giants carelessly put- 
ting their feet in the middle of our hill and 
breaking in upon our private life. Those 



166 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

accidents will happen though, and our first 
thought is always the babies. They have no 
legs, and we have no hands, so we take them 
in our jaws, and speed away with them to 
our underground chambers, where they will 
be safe. I have seen human babies carried 
when they did have legs. There is no excuse 
for that. 

"Another thing, I know better than to 
call a human baby an egg, but, would you 
believe me, there are lots of people who think 
our babies are eggs. I have heard them 
called so. Now the reason we are so careful 
of our babies is because if there were no 
babies there would be no ants, and that 
brings me to the queen, for without her there 
would be no babies, because there would be 
no eggs, and babies always begin by being 
eggs. Only the queen lays eggs, remember 
that. She is important for this reason, and 
no other. She is not our ruler, as some 
suppose. In fact, we have no ruler. Ants 
do as they please, but they usually please 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 167 

to do what is best for the whole community. 
We have many queens, but they are not 
jealous of each other, as the bee queens 
are. They do not look like us workers. 
They are ever so much larger, and were 
hatched with wings. The males also have 
wings, but it really matters very little what 
they have. They are such a weakly set, and 
after they go abroad with the queens, when 
they take the one flight of their lives, they 
usually die, or something eats them, and so 
they are settled. It is the queens who interest 
us. Some of them we never see again. They 
go off somewhere and start new colonies, or 
something may eat them too, but those that 
come back either unhook their wings, or 
we do it for them. Then they settle down 
and begin to lay eggs. Their egg laying is 
not after the fashion of bee queens, who go 
to certain cells and leave eggs in them. The 
ants drop their eggs as they walk around." 

"Don't they get lost?" asked Ruth. 

"No, indeed. Workers follow and pick 



168 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

up every one. They take good care of those 
precious eggs, too, and when they hatch 
into helpless grubs, without wings or feet, 
our work begins in earnest. Every morning 
we carry them into the sunshine, and bring 
them down again at night. We fondle them 
too, and keep them clean by licking them 
all over. Then of course they must be 
fed, and, like other babies, they prefer 
milk." 

"And I know where you get the milk!" 
cried Ruth, all excitement. "It is from the 
aphides, isn't it? The cicada told me. The 
aphides are his cousins. He doesn't think 
so much of them, but he says you do." 

"Well, why shouldn't we? They give us 
the most delicious milk. We have a fine 
herd of aphides now pasturing on a stalk of 
sweetbrier, and when Winter comes w~e will 
keep their eggs down in our nest, and put 
them on the sweetbrier in the Spring, so that 
the little aphides which hatch from them will 
have plenty to eat. Yes, and we may even 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 169 

build tiny sheds for them to keep their ene- 
mies from reaching them." 

"I wonder if you intend to. talk all day?" 
broke in a sharp voice. "I sha'n't wait an- 
other minute." 

It was not Mrs. Horntail, as Ruth thought 
at first, but Madame Vespa Maculata, or, 
in plain English, the white-faced hornet, 
and, as she was a fiery lady, no one disputed 
her when she said : 

"I am the largest and most distinguished 
of my family, and I build a nest whose deli- 
cacy and beauty make it a wonderful piece of 
insect architecture. It is proper that I should 
speak first, and I will speak right now." 

"Speak, by all means," said the little ant. 
"I have quite finished." 

"Then move," answered Vespa; "I need 
space." 

The whole audience gave it to her, includ- 
ing Ruth, who did not edge up close, as she 
did to the other speakers. 

"It is this way," she whispered to Belinda. 



170 



THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 



"Those sharp 
people are very- 
interesting, but it 
is better not to get 
too near until you 
know them quite 
well." 

"I suppose," Ma- 
dame Vespa was saying, 
I suppose we wasps 
can scarcely be called 
general favourites. We 
have a sting, you see, but, 
my friends, that was inten- 
ded for laying eggs, and if 
we use it on people it is 
because they meddle in our 
business. It is our way. We will sting those 
who bother us. Now, in our community — 
for we are social wasps — the female is unques- 
tionably the better half. We have our rights 
and we insist on them. My mate was a good- 
for-nothing fellow, like the rest of them. I 




* VESPA MACULATA* 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 171 

didn't marry him until Fall, and he soon left 
me, and did nothing but perch around in the 
sunshine with others like him, and I had 
all the hard work of the home. Finally he 
died. I suppose he couldn't help that, but 
I doubt if he would have made an effort 
anyhow. Well, reproaches are of no use 
now, for he is very much dead by this time. 
I have had a whole Winter's sleep since I saw 
him last. We queen wasps always sleep in 
Winter. We are the only ones of the colony 
who do not die when cold weather comes. 
You see, our community is not like the bees. 
It lasts only for a Summer, and each Spring 
the queens wake up and start a new one. That 
was what I did. I slept in the crevice of a 
barn and left it full of plans. You can 
imagine the task before me, but I was plucky 
and soon chose a tree to suit me. My house 
was made of paper, and I should like to say 
right here that we wasps are the first paper 
makers in the world, for while Egypt still 
traced her records in stone, or on the inner 



172 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

bark of the papyrus, my ancestors were 
manufacturing paper, that man has finally 
learned to make in the same way. For 
paper is only vegetable fibre reduced to a 
pulp and pressed into sheets. " 

Ruth's eyes were wide with astonishment, 
and she was edging nearer to Madame 
Vespa. 

" Can you really make paper out of wood?" 
she asked. 

"Of course. See my jaws? They are 
made to chew wood. Not decayed wood 
either. That may do for wasps who live 
under ground, for the brownish paper it 
makes isn't strong enough to stand exposure. 
I choose good wood, and I make fine gray 
paper. " 

"I wish you would tell me how you do it," 
begged Ruth. 

"Why, I simply gnaw the wood with my 
powerful jaws, and chew it until it is a pulpy 
mass, then I spread it in a sheet, wherever 
I wish it, and smooth and pat it with my feet. 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 173 

See how flat they are? I have heard of 
people beginning their houses at the cellar 
and building up. I consider that perfectly 
ridiculous. I always begin at the top. 
First, I make a slender stem or support 
to fasten the nest to the tree. Then I make 
three or more six-sided cells, which I hang 
from the support, and lay an egg in each, 
fastening it in with glue, for the open side 
of the cell is down. After this I enclose 
my cells with a wall of paper, and by 
this time, I am glad to say, my children begin 
to hatch, and though at first they look 
like horrid little worms, who can't help 
themselves at all, I always know they 
will grow like me soon, and do a great deal 
of work. 

"Feeding them isn't an easy job, I can 
tell you, especially when it is added to my 
other duties, but, after a while, each baby 
weaves a little silken door over its cell, and 
goes to sleep. When she wakes she is a 
wasp, and the first thing she does is to wash 



174 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

her face and polish her antennae, nor is 
it long before she gets to work. My first 
children are always workers, and after a 
number of them are hatched I can give my 
whole time to laying eggs." 

"But when the nest is once done?" 
began Ruth, who had forgotten her fear 
entirely and was now quite close to Madame 
Vespa. 

"The nest done?" repeated the fiery lady. 
"You should know that our nest is never 
done. New cells must be added, old walls 
gnawed down, and fresh ones built up to 
enclose larger combs. Indeed, we are never 
idle. We ventilate as the bees do, and we 
have sentinels too. Later in the season I 
lay eggs that hatch out drones, and last of 
all, the queen eggs. They are " 

"Now you would think," said a yellow 
jacket, buzzing up excitedly, "you would 
really think that Vespa might mention the 
fact that other wasps exist, but not she. Now 
I want to tell you, the white-faced hornet 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 175 

isn't the whole thing. There are yellow 
jackets too." 

"We have eyes," said Madame Vespa, 
"but go ahead and talk, and get through, 
for pity sake." 

"Yes, I mean to talk, and I shall get 
through when I please. We always insist 
that people shall respect our rights, and 
they generally do or — something happens. 
Our nests are quite as remarkable as Vespa's, 
though we do not hang them from trees, as 
she is in the habit of doing. Our cousin, 
Mrs. Polistes, also makes a paper nest, but 
she builds only a layer of cells, with not a 
sign of a wall about them. Any one can 
look right in on her private life." 

"I'm quite willing they should," spoke up 
Mrs. Polistes, a long, slender brown wasp, 
with a yellow line around her body. "I 
could wall up my house if I wished to, but 
I don't and I won't; so there." 

"They all have awful tempers, haven't 
they?" said Ruth to Mrs. Horntail. 



176 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"Tempers?" repeated that lady. "They 
are perfect pepper pots, though I must say 
Mrs. Polistes isn't usually as bad as the 
others." 

"I am talking," called the yellow jacket, 
"and the rest of the audience will please 
keep still. As I was saying, though I doubt 
if you all heard it, there are other members 
of our family who have not been mentioned 
yet. We have miners, masons, and carpenters 
just like the bees. Of course they are soli- 
tary, and " 

"I object!" interrupted Mrs. Muddauber. 
"I won't be bunched in with ever so many 
others. I will speak for myself. " 

She was quite graceful, with a waist as 
slender as a thread, but she jerked her wings 
about in such a nervous and fidgety fashion 
that Mrs. Horntail declared she must have 
St. Vitus's dance. 

"I haven't any such thing," answered 
Mrs. Muddauber, angrily. "I haven't any 
time to dance. I'm nervous, that's all. 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 177 

Anybody would be nervous with all the work 
I have to do, and my mate such a lazy fellow 
that he never thinks of lending me a helping 
mandible in making my home. He says he 
doesn't live very long, and wants to enjoy 
himself while he can. Speaking of houses, 
I don't approve of paper ones. I always 
make mine of mud. I'm a mason, you see. 
I get one room finished, and lay an egg in 
it. Then I go to market to get my baby's 
dinner." 

"But you haven't any baby," objected Mrs. 
Horntail. "Your egg doesn't hatch as soon 
as it is laid, I know that." 

" What of it? The egg will be a baby some- 
time, and the baby will be hungry. He will 
not be a vegetarian either. He will want 
meat. Juicy spiders are what he prefers, 
and he likes them fresh. Now if I should 
kill them they would be anything but 
fresh when he is ready to eat them, so 
I merely sting them until they are quite 
paralyzed, then I put them in the room 



178 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

with my egg and seal it up. I build a 
number of cells with an egg and spiders 
in each, but I am not a jug builder. 
I have no time to fool after such silly 
affairs as you sometimes see on twigs and 
bushes." 

"She isn't artistic enough, she had better 
say," remarked the little jug builder. "My 
nests are wonderfully pretty. I have heard 
many people say so. I am very careful to 
give them a delicate shape. I line them 
with silk too, but I will not tell you how I 
make this silk. Even the wise men have not 
discovered our secret." 

"Disagreeable creature!" remarked Mrs. 
Horntail; "but then what can you expect 
from a wasp of any kind? Now who is mak- 
ing that dreadful noise? I shall certainly 
be a wreck before I get away from this place. 
People who buzz in such a fashion ought 
certainly to be turned out. But there, what's 
the use of asking? I might know it could 
only be " 



WISE FRIENDS AND FIERY ONES 179 

"Sir Bumble Bee at your service." And 
a big fellow dressed all in black and gold 
buzzed up before the angry Mrs. Horntail. 




^7w<^Mk&g^& i *& ' 








CHAPTER XII 



THE HONEY MAKERS 



Gaily we fly, my fellows and I, 
Seeking the honey our hives to supply. 

I AM an American," he went on, in a voice 
which all could hear. "A native of this 
great and glorious country, and I have 
a right to buzz, or make any noise I please. 
Those little bees who make honeycomb are 
foreigners — immigrants. Useful citizens, I 
will grant, but still immigrants. Now, my 
ancestors were here when Columbus dis- 
covered America. Do you know that my 

180 



THE HONEY MAKERS 181 

name is Bombus, spelt with a big 'B'? Now, 
to show you how useful we bumble bees are, 
I shall tell you a story. Once upon a time 
— are you all listening?" 

"I am," answered Ruth, quickly. "Please 
go on." 

"Well, once upon a time there was no 
red clover in Australia, and the farmers 
of that country decided to take American 
seed there and plant it. The first year the 
crop grew finely. There were plenty of 
flowers, but no seeds. Of course that was 
bad, they needed seed for the next year's 
sowing. Well, once more they brought seed 
from America, and once more the crop 
grew finely, but not a seed came from it. 
Then the people began to think, and after 
a while they found out the trouble. They 
hadn't the American bumble bee and they 
had to have him, for, my friends, we, only, 
of all the bees, can fertilize the red-clover 
blossom, for only we have tongues long enough 
to reach its nectar cups and the cell where 



182 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

its precious pollen is hidden. You may not 
think our tongue so long, because it is rolled 
up when we are not using it, but look! And 
he unrolled a long brown tongue, which, in 
a moment, seemed gone again. 

"Gracious!" said Ruth. 

"Now do you wonder that we can reach 
down into the red clover? When we went 
to Australia the clover not only grew, but 
set seeds too." 

"But," questioned Ruth, "do different 
flowers have different bees to come to them, 
and how do you know?" 

"Ah, that's just it. A voice within us 
seems to whisper, 'Go to the blossom whose 
heart you can best reach, feed upon its honey 
and take your fill of its golden dust.' We 
know it to be the law, and we obey, and, 
even as we obey, the pollen clings to our 
hairy bodies, and we bear it to the next 
flower we visit. This is what usually hap- 
pens, but sometimes," he added, as though 
ashamed, "I must say, we break the law, and, 



THE HONEY MAKERS 183 

finding a flower whose honey we cannot reach, 
we use our tongues to cut a hole in the 
spot where we know the nectar is hidden 
and enter from the outside. Plainly speaking, 
it is the way of the thief, getting our feast 
without paying for it. For the bee who takes 
it so carries away no pollen, and an honest 
bee should never act so. Now perhaps 
you would like to know how we bumble 
bees began life? I am sure the little girl 
would." And Ruth nodded an emphatic 
"Yes." 

"We do not live all Winter, as honey bees 
do. Only a few queens sleep through the cold 
months, and they do not need food; so while 
we make a little honey to eat in Summer, 
we do not lay by any stores for Winter, 
and naturally we make no combs. What 
looks like them are the silken cocoons our 
babies spin. If I were a queen, I wouldn't 
be here. Queens have too much work to 
do to be abroad in Summer. You may see 
them in the early Spring flying about and 



184 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

hunting up good home sites. A hole under 
a log is often chosen, and gathering nectar 
and pollen the queen carries it to this under- 
ground palace. In the mass she lays an egg, 
then gathers more, in which she also lays an 
egg. In this way her house is soon full. 
When the eggs hatch, the babies eat the pollen 
and nectar they find around them. I was 
just such a baby, and, being a gentleman, I 
haven't much to do. I shall probably marry 
a queen some day, but now I simply play in 
the sunshine. We bumble bees belong to 
the social branch of the family, but there are 
many bees who live alone. They all follow 
trades. There is the carpenter, who isn't 
furry like us, but black and shiny. She can 
bore right into solid wood and make cells 
for her eggs. Then there are the miners, 
who burrow into the ground, and the masons, 
who make nests out of grains of sand glued 
together, or out of clay or mud. Some of 
the carpenters line their nests with pieces 
of leaves, which they cut out with their sharp 



THE HONEY MAKERS 185 

jaws. They have been called upholsterers 
and they " 

"This is all very interesting," interrupted 
a honey bee, "but really I must speak now. 
I have so much to say, and my work is 
waiting." 

"Talk, by all means," answered Sir Bumble 
Bee, gallantly. "I am a gentleman, and I 
always yield to ladies." 

"Thank you, but I can't call myself a 
lady. I am just a worker honey bee. My 
name is Apis Mellifica, but I do belong to a 
wonderful family. I will admit that. We are 
the greatest wax makers in the world. I 
heard somebody once say that bees are always 
in a hurry, while butterflies seem to take 
their time. Now there's a good reason 
for that. Butterflies haven't any work to 
do. They do not even see their children, and 
never take care of them, while bees have 
thousands of babies to feed and look after. 
Then you must know we clean house every 
day, for we are extremely neat housekeepers. 



186 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

We clean ourselves also, and we have combs 
and brushes for that purpose." 

The words combs and brushes seemed to 
have quite an effect on the bees and ants 
in the audience, and many began to make 
their toilets, Miss Apis among them. They 
looked so very funny that Ruth laughed out- 
right, but she quickly settled down to listen, 
as Miss Apis, feeling herself quite clean, 
said briskly: 

"Now I will tell a story. Once upon a 
time there was a large hive under an apple 
tree. A hedge sheltered it from the wind, 
and the tree shaded it from the sun, which 
made it very pleasant for the family who 
lived there. It was a very large family, 
for there were thousands and thousands of 
members, but they lived together in peace, 
each doing her own share of work. Of 
course there was a queen. She had a long, 
slender body and short wings. This did not 
matter, for she had only flown from the hive 
once, and then she had a bodyguard of 



THE HONEY MAKERS 187 

drones. Maybe you think that because she 
was a queen she had nothing to do. It is 
true, she was not obliged to gather honey, 
make wax, clean house, nurse the children, 
or anything of that sort, but she was kept 




THE QUEEN BEE AND HER BODYGUARD OF DRONES 



188 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

busy laying eggs. She laid thousands every 
day." 

Ruth opened her eyes wide. "Think of 
it, Belinda!" she said. "Thousands of eggs 
a day! Just suppose she was a hen." 

"She is something far more important," 
answered Miss Apis, "and her eggs are of 
much more consequence. Besides the queen 
there were drones and workers in this big 
family. The drones did no work at all, 
though they were large and thick-bodied. 
Indeed, all they seemed fit for was to fly with 
the queen when she took her one trip abroad, 
and to eat what the workers gathered." 

"See here!" said a drone from the back of 
the assembly. "I am getting tired of being 
called lazy. I should like to say right here 
that we drones haven't any honey sac nor 
any pollen baskets, not even a pollen brush, 
like Mrs. Carpenter Bee, so how can we 
gather pollen or honey? Besides, we haven't 
any sting to defend ourselves with." 

"We will not argue the point," said Miss 



THE HONEY MAKERS 189 

Apis, "but go on to the workers, who formed 
the largest part of the colony. They were 
hatched to work, and they were willing to 
work until they died. They had strong wings, 
lots of eyes, and three stomach sacs." 

"Well, I can't see any use in so many 
stomachs," said Mrs. Horntail, and Ruth 
agreed with her, though she did not say so. 

"You would if you were a bee," said Miss 
Apis, mildly. "You see, or maybe you don't, 
that eating honey, and just swallowing it, 
are two different things. When a bee just 
swallows honey it passes through the strainer, 
or fine hairs, in the first sac, so that every 
speck of pollen may be taken out, and into the 
second one, where it remains until the bee is 
ready to uns wallow it in the hive. But when 
a bee wishes to eat this honey it passes on 
into the third sac, or the real stomach, and 
is digested." 

"Well, I am sorry I spoke," said Mrs. 
Horntail, "for I certainly do not enjoy these 
details." 



190 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"I can't help that," answered Miss Apis, 
undisturbed, "I am telling facts. Not only 
had these workers three stomach sacs, but 
they also had pollen baskets on their hind 
legs, for it is from the pollen gathered in the 
flowers and mixed with honey and water 
that the bee bread fed to the baby bees is 
made. Not all the workers gathered honey, 
though. Some made wax and built combs, 
and this was a very hard job, for they were 
obliged to hang from the ceiling and pick 
wax from the under side of their bodies, then 
chew it and plaster it to the walls. This 
wax is in eight scales, or pockets, on the under 
side of the worker bee's body, and it is made 
by what she eats. When the pockets of one 
bee were emptied, the next one took her place, 
and when the lump on the side of the wall 
was large enough another set of bees formed 
it into cells. Of course you know that the 
cells in a beehive are always six-sided. That 
is because six-sided cells use all the space, 
and are also strongest. At least the wise 



THE HONEY MAKERS 191 

men say that is probably the reason why 
we make them so, and they think they know. 
Other of the workers took care of the babies. 
They fed them and kept them clean, and 
some aired the hive." 

Ruth's eyes were big with questions. Miss 
Apis saw and continued: 

"They did this by moving their wings 
rapidly as if they were flying, and when 
many did it at the same time the good air 
was driven around the hive and the bad air 
out. Then, of course, there had to be sentinels 
to speak to every bee who passed in, and make 
sure she had the right to enter, for human 
people are not our only robbers. There 
are flies that look much like us, but ask them 
to show their pollen baskets, and they can't 
do it. Now it happened one Spring in the 
hive I am telling you about that the queen 
heard a sound that she didn't like at all. 
It was a thin piping, and it came from one 
of the brood cells, which is the nursery of 
the hive. 



192 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"'It sounds like a young queen,' she said, 
' but I have laid no queen eggs.' The workers 
stopped their tasks long enough to talk about 
it. They knew perfectly well that it was a 
young queen, and they also knew how she 
happened to be there, even though the old 
queen had laid no eggs in the cells on the 
edge of the comb meant for queen eggs. 
The old queen did not wish another royal 
lady, but the workers knew that if anything 
happened to the old queen there would be 
none to take her place, and such a thing 
must not be allowed. So they had taken 
down two waxen walls between three small 
brood cells, where a worker egg lay, and so 
made it into a royal cell. They bit away the 
wax with their jaws, and pressed the rough 
edges into shape with their feet, and when 
the egg within hatched, instead of feeding 
the baby with flower dust and honey and 
water, as they would have done had they 
intended it to grow into a worker, they fed 
it royal jelly. And so after it had grown and 



THE HONEY MAKERS 193 

spun a cocoon, within which it had lain for 
sixteen days, it had become a young queen, 
ready to leave her cell. But the workers 
knew it would never do for her to come out 
just yet, for she and the old queen would have 
to fight, and one would surely die." 

"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Ruth. "Why 
should they?" 

"Because only one queen may reign in a 
hive. 

"We will keep her in her cell a little 
longer,' the workers said to each other. And 
they built a wall of wax over her door, leav- 
ing only a hole large enough for her to thrust 
out her tongue so that they might feed her. 
But though she couldn't get out, she could 
complain." 

"I should have complained too," said Ruth. 

"Well this young queen complained in 
earnest, and the old queen heard her, and 
of course she tried to get to the cell of this 
pert young one, and settle her for all time. 
This the workers would not allow. They 



194 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

would not touch their old queen, but they 
formed a bodyguard about the cell of the new 
one, and so protected her. 

"Well,' said the old queen at last, T 
can't stand this. I will not stay here. I 
shall take my friends with me and fly away 
to a place where only I shall be queen.' 

"She grew more and more excited, as time 
passed, and, as many of the workers were 
excited too, the hive was in much confusion. 

"'We are much too crowded,' said some 
of the workers. 

"I can't seem to settle down to work,' 
answered others. c What can you expect when 
thousands of children are added to a family 
in a week? The time comes when the house 
must be made larger, or some of the members 
must move.' 

"We will move/ said the old queen in a 
tone of decision. 'We will move right now. 
Those who are my friends, come. The others 
may stay with the piping thing in yonder 
cell.' 



THE HONEY MAKERS 195 

"And without further words, the old queen 
flew away, followed by a great many workers." 

"Now I know what swarming means!" 
cried Ruth. "I used to wonder about it." 

Miss Apis nodded. 

"When the swarm was well away, the 
workers who were left in the hive hastened to 
let out the new queen." 

"She must have been glad," said Ruth. 

"Very likely," agreed Miss Apis. "She 
began her reign with a flying trip into the 
world with the drones. But after this, she 
came back to the hive, and settled down to 
the business of egg-laying. Of course the 
workers took up the same old tasks, for what- 
ever happens, workers will work. That is 
why they have no love for the drones, and 
when Winter comes they drive these lazy 
ones from the hive." 

"I think I feel a little bit sorry for the 
drones," said Ruth, "if they can't help being 
lazy, as that drone said a while ago." 

"Well, it is our way," answered Miss 



196 



THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 



Apis. "Only those who have worked in 
the Summer have a right to eat in the Winter. 
Now my work is calling me, and I must 
leave. This story of one hive is true of all. 
I hope you have enjoyed it, and so good-by." 

"There, she is finished at last," said Mrs. 
Horntail. "I think this whole meeting has 
been most tiresome." 

But Ruth did not agree with her. 





CHAPTER Xm 

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 

Lo! the bright tram their radiant wings unfurl. 

— Anna L. Barbauld. 

IT SEEMS nothing but butterflies!" cried 
Ruth, running out into the garden as 
soon as breakfast was over. 
"Of course," answered a voice, "the Lep- 
idoptera will meet by the summer-house." 

"Does that mean butterflies? And oh, 
please, may I come?" 

"Yes, to both questions," was wafted back 
from the beautiful creature flitting so grace- 
fully on the light warm breeze. 

"Just like a flower with wings," thought 

197 



198 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

Ruth as, holding Belinda closely, she followed 
as fast as she could go. 

Indeed, they all seemed like flowers with 
wings, she decided, as she came into the middle 
of the gathering. 

"It is the most beautiful we have been to 
yet," she whispered to Belinda, "and I am 
sure it is going to be the most interesting. 
I couldn't begin to count them." 

Ruth might well say this, for nearly all 
the fifty-four families of moths to be found 
in America north of Mexico were represented 
by at least one member, while there were 
many from the four families of butterflies 
and the two families of skippers. 

Ruth came only just in time, for already 
one of the moths had begun to speak. He 
was a handsome fellow, with fore wings in 
different shades of olive. 

"My friends," he said, "I am called the 
modest sphinx, and, that being the case, you 
may imagine how painful it is for me to put 
myself forward in this way. I have been 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 199 

asked, however, to give you a few general 
facts. Why I am expected to know these 
facts is, perhaps, because, being a sphinx, 
I should also be wise. Yet I am not the only 
sphinx here, and, if I remember aright, the 
old and historic sphinx asked, rather than 
answered, questions." 

"He uses awfully big words," Ruth whis- 
pered to her usual confidant, Belinda. 

"Now to begin," went on the sphinx, 
"you know, I suppose, that we belong 
to the order Lepidoptera, which means the 
scale wings, because the colour of our wings 
is made by scales so tiny that they are really 
like dust. We are divided into moths, butter- 
flies, and skippers, and all of us are messen- 
gers for the flowers, carrying the precious 
pollen from blossom to blossom. Our chil- 
dren are generally enemies to the plants. 
They are called caterpillars, and seem to 
have a great many legs, but really only six 
of them are true legs and remain when the 
youngster is full grown. The others are 



200 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

prolegs. There may be two or there may be 
ten. They help in walking, but are shed 
with the last skin. " 

"Alas!" sighed a voice in the corner. 
"X haven't any to shed — that is, in the 
middle of my body. " 

Ruth turned as Mr. Looper, otherwise 
known as the measuring worm, made this 
remark. She would have asked a question, 
for Mr. Looper, rearing his head after his 
own queer fashion, seemed quite ready to 
talk, but the sphinx stopped her. 

"This is not the time to talk about indi- 
vidual legs," he said. "We are trying to get 
at general differences. Now there are cer- 
tain ways in which all moths differ from all 
butterflies. " 

"I should say so," said Miss Papilio, a 
handsome tiger swallowtail. "Moths have 
short, stout bodies, and ours are slender." 
And Miss Papilio circled above them so that 
all might admire her delicate body and the 
beauty of her tawny yellow wings, with their 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 201 

gray bands and stripes, and their ends pointed 
in true swallowtail fashion. 

"And here is another difference," she added, 
coming to rest with her wings folded together 
vertically. "We always carry our wings so 
when we are not flying. You moths hold 
yours horizontally, or sloping. Never up- 
ward." 

"Well, that's true," said the sphinx, "and 
you know we generally have beautiful feath- 
ery antennae, though I, and a few others, 
are an exception to that rule, but you butter- 
flies can boast only very thread-like antennse, 
with a knob at the end." 

"Enough about that subject," spoke up 
Miss Papilio. "What I am wondering about 
is why moths like to fly at night, or in the 
twilight. Now, butterflies must have sun- 
shine." 

"We love the cool, soft night, I can't 
tell you why," answered the sphinx, "and 
we sleep through the noisy day." 

"But it is so dangerous to sleep as you do, 



202 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

when birds and other nuisances are up and 
doing." 

"Well, birds are pests, there is no doubt 
about it, and if it hadn't been for them we 
insects would have possessed the earth long 
ago, but you forget, we always choose a place 
that is nearly the colour of ourselves, and we 
look so much like our surroundings that it 
would take a sharp eye to find us. We are 
not brightly coloured, as a rule, like the butter- 
flies, or if we wear gay colours at all it is usually 
on our hind wings, which we hide under the 
fore wings. Now the general remarks being 
made, the audience may view the exhibits 
and hear their individual histories." 

Ruth was up in a second. 

"I must talk to that funny measuring 
worm," she said to herself. "Why, where 
is he?" she added, standing before the bush 
on which she had seen him a while before. 

"Right here," answered what Ruth thought 
was a twig, and which proved to be none other 
than Mr. Looper himself, who raised his head 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 203 

and began to walk on his hind legs in his own 
eccentric fashion. Indeed, not only he, but 
a number of other Mr. Loopers, all showing 
themselves in different positions. 






SMART CHILDREN, AREN'T THEY?' ASKED SOME MOTHS " 



"Smart children, aren't they?" asked some 
moths, variously coloured in black and brown 
and yellow, hovering above the tree where 
the loopers were feeding. "They are ours 



204 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

— that is, not exactly ours, but ours will 
be like them when they are hatched. These 
fellows will soon make little cradles of leaves 
and go into the ground to go to sleep, and 
when they come out they will be like us. 
Wonderful, isn't it?" 

"Yes," agreed Ruth, "but I'd like to know 
about their legs." 

"I can explain that," said Mr. Looper 
quickly. "I have no legs in the middle of 
my body, and as that part of me isn't sup- 
ported, I can't walk like other caterpillars, for 
I am a caterpillar, even if they do call me a 



worm." 



"The legs, or the want of them, is a fault 
of his ancestors no doubt," interrupted a 
voice. "Probably they walked in his idiotic 
fashion for fun, or to be different, even when 
they did have the right number of legs, and 
so lost the use of them, and the legs, too, 
finally. That often happens. I could tell 
you of cases " 

"Why, you look something like Miss Pa- 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 205 

pilio," said Ruth, turning to the last speaker, 
and interrupting her reminiscences. 

"I am a Miss Papilio," was the answer, 
"but not the one you heard a while ago. 
She was a tiger swallowtail, while I am a 
black swallowtail, different, but quite as 
handsome in my way. We swallowtails all 
believe in dressing well. We are butterflies, 
not moths, but though I am so beautiful, 
I serve some very humble plants. I carry 
the precious pollen for them. My children, 
I'm afraid, will not be so helpful, but what 
can one do? I happen to like honey, but 
they prefer the leaves of parsley, carrot, 
celery, and such things. They have large 
appetites, too. " 

"Everything seems to have an appetite," 
said Ruth. 

"Well, my children will be able to eat, I 
can tell you. See, I have laid my eggs on 
this bed of parsley. Ah! there's a larva 
now. Not mine, but mine will be like it. 
See, he is green, ringed with black and yellow. 



206 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

If you tease him he will stick out his yellow 
horns at you, and you won't like the odour 
either. Would you believe I was once like 
that, and I slept in a pupa case like the one 
under the twig there? You know there al- 
ways comes a time in the life of every cater- 
pillar, if he lives long enough of course, when 
he stops eating for good and wants nothing 
so much as to sleep. That came to me, and 
I crawled from the parsley bed to an old rail 
fence and began to spin. The silk was in 
my body, and it came through two tubes in 
my lower lip. " 

"That isn't the way spiders spin," said 
Ruth. "They " 

"I was not a spider," said Miss Papilio. 
"I was a caterpillar, and they always spin 
with their mouths. So that is what I did, 
and before long I had lashed myself securely 
to the fence by strong silken loops. Then I 
shed my pretty suit, and my skin shrivelled 
until it was a hard case. In that safe cradle 
I went to sleep, and came out in the Spring 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 207 

with six legs instead of sixteen, a slender 
tongue in place of sharp, hungry jaws, and, 
best of all, four beautiful wings. Oh, the 
joy of sailing through wonderful space, and 
sipping nectar from the sweetest flowers!" 

"We have all felt that way," said a large 
red-brown butterfly, whose wings, lighter 
below, were veined and bordered by black, 
with a double row of white spots on the edges. 
"Look at the chrysalis from which I came, and 
say no more. Can you guess my name?" 

Ruth was obliged to confess that she could 
not. 

"I have often seen you though," she added, 
"or butterflies just like you." 

"Probably you have. I am called the 
monarch, and, frail as I look, I can fly 
hundreds of miles without resting. I was 
just laying some eggs on this milkweed, and 
since you are here, you might use your eyes a 
little. You may see something worth while." 

Ruth was using her eyes as best she could, 
and soon she spied a number of caterpillars 



208 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

chewing away upon the milkweed leaves. 
They were lemon or greenish-yellow, banded 
with black. 

"Will they grow into butterflies like you?" 
she asked. 

"Yes," was the answer, "but there is some- 
thing more to see. " 

Again Ruth looked, and now saw what 
appeared to be a little green jewel dotted 
with golden nails. 

"Oh!" she cried, "how lovely!" 

"I thought you would say that," and 
the monarch fluttered her wings proudly. 
"That is our chrysalis, the cradle in which 
we sleep for our great transformation. That 
is one thing the viceroy can't do, though she 
mimics us as much as possible." 

"Mimics you?" repeated Ruth, in surprise. 

"Yes, certainly. You see we monarchs 
are wrapped in a magic perfume — that no 
birds like, and so they never try to eat us. 
Now, Mrs. Viceroy hasn't this perfume, 
and to protect herself she tries to imitate 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 209 

our family colours, so that the birds, mistak- 
ing her for one of us, may leave her alone too. 
She even flies as we do. See her over there? 
She is smaller than I am, but quite like me, 
except for the black line on her hind wings. 
A careless observer would scarcely notice 
that, however." 

The monarch floated off to lay some more 
eggs, and Ruth found herself in the midst of 
ever so many tawny brown butterflies, all 
bordered and checkered with black, and 
having wings covered with silver spots. 

"Oh, you are so lovely!" she cried, with 
shining eyes, and then, as they passed on, 
calling back their name, " Fritillaries ! " "Fri- 
tillaries!" she turned to see many other daz- 
zling creatures fluttering about her. Some 
she had never seen before, but others were 
like old friends. There were the meadow 
browns, the stout-bodied coppers, the slender, 
beautiful blues, and more white cabbage 
butterflies than she could count. The hand- 
some red admiral flirted with the pretty 



210 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

painted lady^ and the mourning cloaks, with 
their purple-brown wings, yellow-bordered 
and marked with light blue spots, were flitting 
about, telling everybody how they had slept 
all Winter as butterflies, which is most un- 
common in the butterfly world, and were 
for that reason the first to show themselves 
in the Spring. 

"I used to wonder why you were out so 
early 9 " said Ruth, "and once I found one 
of you in a crevice on a Winter day, and I 
couldn't understand about it." 

"Well, you do now. We hibernate like 
many animals." 

"But you must have been eggs in the 
beginning," said Ruth. "The oil beetle told 
me that all insects begin as eggs. And will 
you please tell me how a butterfly knows the 
right kind of plant to lay her eggs on? It 
always seems to be just the one her cater- 
pillars like to eat. She doesn't eat it herself." 

"Of course not," answered one of the 
mourning cloaks. "You need but look at 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 211 

our tongues to see that we eat only honey. 
I can't answer your question, for none of us 
knows. Something tells us the proper plant 
for our eggs. We lay them there without 
hesitation, and we lay a great many. This 
is necessary, for one never knows what 
may happen. Most of them may make a 
meal for something before they even hatch 
into caterpillars, and if some miss this fate, 
and do hatch, there are any number of birds, 
and their enemies, who like nothing so well 
as a fat, juicy caterpillar for dinner. Then 
if that danger is escaped, there are the birds 
again, and other hungry things, all anxious 
to get a taste of the butterfly. So you can 
understand that in a life so full of accidents it 
is important to have many eggs to begin with. 

"Yes," said Ruth, "but " 

She didn't finish, for just then she put her 
hand on what she thought was a leaf, and, much 
to her surprise, she found that it was alive. 



CHAPTER XIV 

REAL FAIRIES 

or the possible glory that underlies 
The passing phase of the meanest things. 

Mrs. Whitney. 

A LIVE it x certainly was, this exquisite 
/-\ green moth, which rose on shimmer- 
"*" ^ ing wings at Ruth's touch. No won- 
der Ruth almost screamed aloud in her sur- 
prised delight. 

"Are you a moonbeam?" she asked. "You 
are just lovely enough for one." 

"No, I am not a moonbeam," was the 
answer, "but I am the moon moth, the 
Luna. I am a messenger for the night- 
blooming flowers, for only the long tongues 

212 




"*I AM THE MOON MOTH, THE LUNA 



214 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

of the moths may reach through the deep 
tubes to their honeyed hearts. I was taking 
my day nap when you touched me." 

"I didn't know you were there," said 
Ruth, "you looked so much like a leaf." 

"That is what I wished to look like. 
Many others are sleeping the same way. 
You wouldn't know them unless they moved. 
Our larvae are not sleeping, however. I 
can answer for that. They are quite awake 
and busy eating the leaves of hickory, walnut, 
and other trees of that family. Maybe you 
have seen them? They are large and hand- 
some, and they spin very snug cocoons of 
silk, wrapped about with a dead leaf, very 
much like those made by the polyphemus 
babies." 

""Now you know your cocoon never had 
the quantity of silk in it that mine had," 
said a yellowish-brown moth, rising from the 
trunk of a nearby tree. 

She was very handsome. There were win- 
dow-like spots on her wings, and dusky bands 



REAL FAIRIES 215 

edged with pink. Not far away were her 
larvae, having a good time chewing the leaves 
of a plumb tree. They were light green, with 
an oblique yellow line on each side, and a 
purplish-brown V-shaped mark near the end 
of their bodies. 

"You may always know the polyp hemus 
children by that mark," said Mrs. Polyphe- 
mus, for it was she who had interrupted the 
Luna's remarks. "Now, speaking of co- 
coons," she went on, "as I said before, ours 
contain a great deal of silk. They have been 
used in the making of silk too. Shall I tell 
you my story?" 

Of course Ruth wanted to hear it. 

"Very well," said Mrs. Polyphemus. "I 
belong to the family of giant silkworms, 
though, of course, we are not worms. I 
began my life on an elm leaf. It was a lovely 
morning in May when I was hatched, and 
the world seemed a beautiful place to live 
in. I did not spend much time admiring 
the scenery, though, for I was hungry. I 



216 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

ate the shell of my egg for the first course, 
then I began to chew elm leaves, and I kept 
it up steadily. Naturally I grew, and I 
changed my skin five times. When I was 
ready to make my cocoon I found a twig on 
the ground among the dead leaves, and spun 
a fluffy mass of gray-white silk all about it, 
and this wrapped in a dead leaf " 

"What?" interrupted Mrs. Cecropia, "spin 
your cocoon on the ground? What a care- 
less habit. Why not fasten it to the twig 
of a tree or " 

"Inside a curled leaf?" added Mrs. Prome- 
thea. "That is the safest way. The wind 
will rock it and ," 

"I said nothing about curled leaves," 
answered Mrs. Cecropia. "I never use a 
curled leaf. I leave that for the leaf rollers. 



"Well, I know swinging would make me 
ill," declared Mrs. Polyphemus, "and I pre- 
fer the ground for my cocoon." 

"Quite right," agreed Mrs, Humming- 



REAL FAIRIES 217 

bird Moth. "The ground for me, too. Our 
children always go down and — — " 

"Gracious! you don't suppose my children 
would go down in the ground?" asked Mrs. 
Polyphemus. "No, indeed; they will sleep 
in their cocoons, among the fallen leaves on 
top. It is snug and cozy too, this cocoon, 
or it will be, I should rather say, for it isn't 
made yet. I remember mine though. A 
mass of coarse silk first, and a coating of 
varnish inside, then more silk, and another 
coating of varnish. I slept soundly, I can 
tell you, and when I awoke in the Spring 
I had only to send from my body a milky 
fluid, which softened the varnish and silk, 
until a doorway was made for me to come 
out of. I felt very weak, miserable, and 
forlorn just at first. I had but six legs, 
and my wings seemed of no use whatever, 
but after I had hung a while to a twig, and 
my wings had grown dry and strong, I was 
a different being. My body was lighter 
and smaller too. Do you know why?" 



218 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

The question came suddenly, and Ruth, 
though she had been listening intently, could 
think of no answer. 

"Because the fluids from it were pumped 
into my wings," said Mrs. Polyphemus. 
"The next time you see a moth just out of 
its cocoon, hanging by its feet and waving 
its wings to and fro, you may know it is pump- 
ing fluids into them, so they may grow big 
and strong. You may see many wonderful 
things if you only keep your eyes open. 
Well, to go back to my story : After my wings 
were strong, I could fly and be as happy as 
I pleased. Now it is time for me to lay my 
eggs." 

"I wondered if you ever meant to stop 
talking," said Mrs. Promethea. "There are 
others, you know. I really can't see how you 
Polyphemuses grow up, considering the care- 
less way your cocoons lie about on the 
ground. Perhaps the people who say that 
caterpillar children are not cared for have 
you in mind. Generally I believe it is better 



REAL FAIRIES 219 

for children to help themselves. You never 
hear caterpillars say, * I can't do this, and will 
some one please help me to change my skin, 
or some one spin my cocoon for me?' No, 
they do these things for themselves, and ask 
no advice about them either. Still I do be- 
lieve one can't be too careful about cocoons, 
for once you are in one and asleep you can't 
defend yourself. It is much better to make 
them safe to begin with. That was what I 
thought when I made mine. I enclosed it 
in a leaf, and then to make sure the leaf 
wouldn't fall in the Winter winds, I fastened 
it to a branch of the tree with a thread of 
silk. No wind or anything else could break 
that thread. It was so strong. Just try 
it," she added to Ruth, "the next time you 
find a Promethean cocoon. You will prob- 
ably see a number together, but all will have 
the same strong fastenings. Another thing, 
I didn't have to make a hole to get out by, 
as Mrs. Polyphemus told us she did. My 
cocoon had a valve in the top, and I had only 



220 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

to crawl through that. Talk about difference 
in looks ! My mate is so unlike me you would 
think he belonged to another species. Our 
children are very handsome. Fully two inches 
long and blue-green in colour, not to mention 
the row of lovely black knobs along their 
bodies." 

"They can't compare with ours," said a 
fine cecropia, settling on a branch and spread- 
ing her beautiful wings. 

She was very large and very handsome. 
Her wings were grayish, with many markings 
of white, brick-red, pink, and violet, and with 
splendid eye spots on each. 

" We are the largest of the giant silkworms," 
she said, "and our larvse are as handsome 
in their way as we are in ours. You can see 
them on the plum trees over there. They are 
wearing their last suits, of course, for, like 
all caterpillars, they eat so much they need 
bigger skins every little while." 

"They are pretty for caterpillars," agreed 
Ruth, looking at the blue-green creatures, 



REAL FAIRIES 221 

with their knobs of red, yellow, and blue, 
all bearing black bristles. 

"They are pretty enough for anything" 
declared Mrs. Cecropia, with decision. "Our 
cocoon is large and fine too. Indeed, every- 
thing about us is first class. We never en- 
close our cocoon in a leaf, though sometimes 
a dead leaf may cling to the outside. We 
spin it along a branch, to which it is securely 
fastened. Some are larger and looser than 
others, but all are beauties." 

"Well, / can't boast of fine clothes," said 
a plainly dressed little moth, who was quietly 
hiding on a shrub, "but I belong to a very 
old family, and a very useful one. We 
were known and appreciated in Asia more 
than four thousand years ago. I, too, came 
from a tiny egg. My body w r as black, cov- 
ered by stiff hairs, and of course I was hungry. 
I liked best the leaf of the mulberry tree, and 
I ate so much I had to change my dress often, 
as all caterpillars do. They all get too big 
for their skins, and that is what I did, but, 



222 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

finally, I lost my appetite, and I knew the 
time had come for me to spin my silken cradle. 
And now I may boast with good reason, for 
I am the true silkworm. My cocoon is spun 
in one thread a quarter of a mile long." 

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Cecropia. "I should 
like to know how you measured it." 

"I haven't measured it," the silkworm 
answered, "but the wise men have. Not 
my particular cocoon, you understand, but 
those of our family, and they are said to 
average that. They are very pretty too, 
these cocoons. I suppose you have all seen 
them? I was nine days making mine, and 
three days after that I cast off my baby 
clothes and went to sleep. I was very weak 
when I awoke and left my cocoon cradle, 
but I soon grew stronger and could walk, for 
you must know that the family to which I 
belong is not in the habit of flying. Its 
members are homebodies and seldom use 
their wings. Many of us, I may say the 
majority, do not live to be moths, for our 



REAL FAIRIES 223 

cocoons are so precious, because of the long 
silk thread, that the larvae are killed before 
they come out. " 

"Why?" said Ruth. 

"Because when the larvae come out they 
break the thread. And now perhaps you 
understand how very useful we are, for all 
the silks, satins, ribbons, and velvets in the 
world are made by us. " 

Ruth's eyes grew wide with astonishment. 

"It is a big boast, isn't it?" said a very 
small straw-coloured moth, flitting rapidly 
about. "It is a true one, though. My chil- 
dren make cocoons too, and I made one 
myself, but it was quite unlike a silkworm's, 
and I have an idea we are not considered 
useful either. I do not work among the 
flowers. I belong to the Wool Exchange, at 
least that is what somebody said about me 
once. My eggs will not be laid on a plant, 
or any growing thing. I shall choose carpet, 
or fine cloth, or something of that sort, and 
when my babies hatch they will gnaw away 



224 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

the fibres of the cloth, and eat and eat. Then 
what they don't eat they will use to cover 
themselves with, binding the threads together 
with silk from their own bodies." 

"I know you, anyway," said Ruth. "You 
ate my Winster dress full of holes. At least 
it was some moths like you." 

"No, my dear, not moths, but their cater- 
pillar babies did the eating." 

"Well, it wasn't nice, whoever did it," 
declared Ruth, with some heat. 

"Nice?" repeated Mrs. Clothes Moth. 
"I suppose it is nice to kill the silkworm 
babies and make dresses from their cradles, 
and nice to do a lot of other things that I 
could mention. I guess you had better not 
talk." 

Ruth was silent. She felt she had the 
worst of the argument. 

"You must not mind," whispered a large 
and beautiful moth whose wings were of 
many delicate shades of ash-gray marked with 
black. 



REAL FAIRIES 225 

Ruth turned to the speaker. 

: 'You are something like the sphinx moth," 
she said. 

"Yes. I am a sphinx," was the answer. 
"All of us look somewhat alike, though some 
are smaller than others, and colours vary. 
But our wings are always clear cut, our scales 
close fitting, and our colours quiet; a tailor- 
made air about us, as it were. We are some- 
times called hawk moths, because our wings 
are narrow, long, and strong, and some- 
times hummingbird moths, because we fly 
at twilight, and poise above a flower while 
extracting its honey, just as hummingbirds 
do." 

"But why are you named the Sphinx?" 
asked Ruth. "You haven't told me that." 

"Well, you see, our larvae have a queer 
habit of rearing themselves up in front 
and remaining in that position, and the 
wise men thought they looked something 
like the old Egyptian Sphinx. There's a 
sphinx moth caterpillar on that tomato vine." 



226 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"He is awful fat and green," said Ruth. 
"Can you show me his cocoon?" 

Even the larva laughed when Ruth asked 
this question. 

"Dear, dear! what ignorance!" said the 
moth. "Just put your hand in that soft 
earth and take out what is there." 

Ruth obeyed, and presently brought up a 
dark brown case, pointed at each end. 

"That is our pupa case," explained the 
moth, "and in it is wrought our wonderful 
transformation. We do not weave cocoons, 
but the little brown case holds the same mir- 
acle of life and growth." 

"Well, there is just as much life and growth 
under my old blanket as in any pupa case, 
or cocoon, that was ever made." 

The speaker was a hairy caterpillar, chestnut 
brown in the middle, and black at each end. 

"That's the woolly bear," explained the 
sphinx. "Just pick him up, and see what 
will happen." 

"I know," answered Ruth, but neverthe- 



REAL FAIRIES 227 

less she took the little brown fellow in her 
hand, whereupon he promptly curled up in a 
tight ball and rolled to the ground. 

"I will do it every time," said the cater- 
pillar. "I have been called the hedge hog 
because of that cute trick. " 

"It is cute," agreed Ruth, "but what do 
you mean by your blanket?" 

"Oh, as to that, I don't fool after cocoons, 
or pupa cases, or the rest of it. I simply 
take off my hair when I am ready for my 
long sleep, and make it into a blanket, which 
covers me snugly. " 

"But it is a cocoon just the same," per- 
sisted Ruth. 

"Well, you may call it what you please, 
I say it is a blanket. When I wake from my 
sleep under it I am no longer a caterpillar, 
but a moth. " 

"Like me," added a dull yellow moth, 
spreading her black dotted wings. "I am 
the Isabella, if you care to know. " 

"So you see," rejoined the woolly bear, 



228 THE REAL FAIRY FOLK 

"it really doesn't matter whether it is a co- 
coon, a pupa case, or a blanket which en- 
closes the glory of our transformation, the 
marvel of it is just the same." 

Long after they had drifted by, that gay 
company of butterflies and moths, Ruth sat 
thinking of the wonder of it all. 

"Didn't I tell you, Belinda," she whis- 
pered, "didn't I tell you it was really living 
in Fairyland, and now, when we can hear 
what they say, and they tell us such interest- 
ing things, it is more Fairyland than ever. 
The Wind told us to watch and listen, and 
we will do that. We will watch and listen 
with all our might, for oh! Belinda, there is 
such a lot to learn yet." 




id iyi^ 



